


Feral

by Stormlight (Quickening)



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M, Humor, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 16:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18450209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quickening/pseuds/Stormlight
Summary: The beast was leashed. It was muzzled. But it had never really been tamed. And now, the Goblin King's hold is slipping.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A few quick notes before you begin:
> 
> ~This story is a sequel based on the movie (of course) and also ACH Smith's written novella, which has a bit more detail not mentioned in the movie. Mostly this relates to the starting chapters and Sarah's character, not sure how much it will matter deeper into the story.
> 
> ~I've been reading Coronation and I love it, but it has nothing to do with this story so therefore does not exist here. I've actually taken the inspiration of Jareth's origins from Return to Labyrinth (the manga nobody likes to talk about), which makes him fae, not human. I've always preferred a fully-fae Jareth, so that's how I generally write him.
> 
> ~This story features a Grown Up, Responsible Mother Sarah. If you don't like that kind of Sarah, stop reading now. Only warning you get.
> 
> Aaaaand I think that's it. Read away! :)

   She loved and hated him with equal passion. It had always been so, although the hate had come much later, after _his_ love grew cold and empty. They had been inseparable for so long. She could not claim that they'd been together since childhood, for neither of them had ever been children. They were ageless beings, although she had lived far longer than he. But he had fascinated her from the moment he’d stepped into existence. Strong. Beautiful. As untamed and feral as the magic that had birthed him. She had beckoned him, and he came to her willingly, and together they had traveled the vast expanses of the universe. They explored worlds, galaxies, dimensions beyond comprehension, had danced among the moons and planets and bathed in rivers of stardust as they’d entwined in their passion, and it had been _glorious_.

   She _hated_ that he had taken it from her. Had, in the end, rejected her love. _Her_ , the Empress of Stars! She, the most powerful, the most beautiful, the most coveted and desirable queen among their kind. It was not to be borne! Who was _he_ to turn from her? A mere lowborn, compared to her greatness. Her love for him had been a blessing, a gift, and he _dared_ to reject it? And for what? A mere _human_.

   Her slow fury kindled and the earth beneath her feet shuddered. The trees shivered and groaned as though to upheave their roots and flee her wrath. It was the humans who had first turned his head. The scurrying, scuttling mortals who had captured his attention so completely. Their brief existence was but the flicker of an eyelash to the fae-kin, but their lives burned fierce and bright, and he, like the foolish moth, had been drawn insatiably to their flame.

   She had gleefully indulged his whims at first. She bored so easily in her forever-life and any new amusement was a welcomed distraction. It was so _easy_ to tempt the greedy mortal creatures with their most cherished desires, lure them to the Underground, into the vast, ever-changing maze that made up but a small portion of the enchanted land. Oh, how she’d enjoyed that merriment! How she’d delighted to watch their futile struggles as the Labyrinth swallowed them up, one by one, rent their dreams asunder and shredded their very _souls_. Left nothing but twisted, shrunken husks that barely resembled men anymore to wander aimlessly within its belly, lost to all reason.

   The Labyrinth had been _wondrous_ back then. A free creature as wild as any of the fae-kin, with a thirst for the hunt and the kill that nearly matched her own. She had delighted in its conquests, fed its insatiable appetite with her offerings in exchange for her amusement. And she had thought her lover joined in her revels, fed on the humans’ torment as surely as she. But she had been wrong. He no longer found amusement in the diversions. He, in fact, _pitied_ the poor creatures caught within the depths of the living monolith, regretted his part in trapping them there.

   He demanded that she stop her games. _Cruel_ , he had called her. He thought her cruel, and he _disapproved_ of her delight in the suffering she caused. She laughed at him; after all, what did his disapproval matter? She was _beyond_ cruelty or kindness. Beyond right and wrong. Good and evil. She was a power unto herself, and the mortals held little more notice than the worms crawling in the earth. They meant nothing to one such as she.

   And when she refused to bow to him, refused to heed his pleading, when he realized that he could not sway her, he left her side. Escaped into the bowels of the Labyrinth, into its very heart. And there, he reared in the wild magic. Wrested control of it from the land, drew it into himself. He bound himself to it, bound the Labyrinth to him, brought it firmly under his control. Still wild as a feral beast, but leashed now, and muzzled. _Tamed_. It was a feat she had _never_ expected. Had never realized he possessed the strength of will or the power to accomplish such a task.

   His conquest was as alluring as it was enraging. Her love and her hate grew and intermingled until she could hardly tell one from the other. The knowledge that he had betrayed her for the sake of humankind, to keep them from her hands, was the most infuriating realization of all. His strength left her breathless with hopeless longing. His treachery left her shaking with impotent fury. She longed to punish him for his betrayal, and she longed to hold him and love him as she once had. She would have given anything to be in his bed again, to feel him inside of her and around her, as she allowed her hands to claw mercilessly into his chest and tear out his living heart.

   But because he now possessed the power of the very Underground, even she could not touch him if he did not wish it. He erected his city and his castle, declared himself the king of every creature within, and continued with his games, for well he knew that the Labyrinth would not stay leashed and muzzled if he did not offer _some_ compensation from time to time.

   But the games were tamer, now. Dare she say _gentle,_ when compared to what they had been before. He offered his prey a _sporting chance_. And when she mocked him he turned a deaf ear to her taunts. When she stood before him in all of her naked glory, offering her forgiveness and her love to him once again, he turned a blind eye to her beauty. Focused instead on the Aboveground and the disgusting mortals she so despised.

   He, for all accounts and purposes, _forgot_ her.

   Rejection. _Humiliation_. She had never before experienced such disagreeable emotions. They fed her rage, her hate. She fled the Labyrinth, fled into the wilderness and unleashed her fury upon it, upon every living creature within a hundred miles. And amidst the complete destruction she wrought, she vowed that she would be his downfall. He might be untouchable now, but at some point, he would slip. He would drop his guard, thinking himself safe. And it would end him.

   So she waited. And watched. And planned. Hours and days and _years_ slipped slowly past, but what was time to an ageless being, anyway? A mere breath. Her patience was limitless, reached beyond the very _concept_ of time. And as the centuries slipped away, her fury dimmed, but not her intent. Not her hate. Even as she slept, she plotted.

   And then, it arrived. Her opportunity. And, delight of delights, from one of those very same mortals her former love so enjoyed. Just another silly pawn in his endless games. But this one was different. This one seemed to fascinate him more than any other. He offered chance after chance, and she took wicked pleasure to hear him beg, to plead with the human child to love him, fear him, obey him. Only for his offer to be flung in his face, those innocent mortal eyes to turn away, seeking a greater prize.

   Karma, it was. The taste of humiliation and rejection that he had bestowed upon _her_ so long ago. Not so sweet to be on the receiving end of it!

   And now came the final confrontation. She stirred, tasted the tension, the anticipation as the final moments trickled past. And the mortal child spoke the Words. Those words that every other mortal had failed to say. But it wasn’t even the words that mattered. The intent behind them became his ultimate defeat. The intent to win. The intent to take back what was hers, to reject his gifts of dreams and love. And because he _did_ love her, as much as he was capable of loving anyone, he let her go.

   And in doing this, she undid him.

   His power cracked. For the briefest of moments the Labyrinth _howled,_ unleashed its fury at being denied its prize, strained against its tether to claim the girl it had lost.

   And as he wrested the beast back under control, she saw her opening. The mere sliver of a chance.

   For the first time in aeons, the Empress of Stars _smiled_.

   And then she struck.

 


	2. One

Sarah Williams-Bradshaw chopped celery with a little more force than was necessary and tried her hardest not to be irritated with her stepmother. It seemed like she was  _ always _ irritated with her stepmother. She tried not to be, because Karen meant well, but she had this chronic habit of  _ meddling _ . Perhaps when Sarah was still a teenager, her meddling had been justified (although Sarah would never  _ admit _ such a thing). But she had turned twenty-six not so long ago, and the last thing she wanted was to be given pointers on how she ought to be running her own life. She was married, for cripes sake! Had been for almost seven years now. That had to account for  _ something _ , didn't it?

Okay, so  _ maybe _ her marriage was on the verge of collapse, but that wasn’t her fault.  _ She _ wasn't the one who'd gone off and cheated. On more than one occasion, she suspected, although Augustine had only ever admitted to the one affair. And  _ that _ was only because she’d come home from work three hours early one day, and walked in right as he was in the middle of having it.

Thank goodness Katie, their seven-year-old daughter, had still been in school during that fiasco…

“ _ Ow! _ ” Sarah jerked her hand away from the cutting board and stuck her thumb in her mouth, glared at the knife she’d just sliced across its pad. That’s what she got for not paying attention.

“Do you need a band-aid?”

“No, Karen, I’m fine,” she sighed, examining the shallow wound critically. Even after all these years, Sarah still refused to call her stepmother “Mom”. She could tell it bothered the woman, who had long since given up trying to convince her to do so. Sometimes she even felt guilty about it, but she couldn't bring herself to call Karen by anything other than her given name. It felt like she'd be betraying her own mother to do otherwise.

Never mind that her own mother had moved to London with her famous boyfriend not long after Sarah's sixteenth birthday and hadn't been back since. She hadn't even returned for the birth of her first grandchild—She'd recently been cast as a lead in one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals and just  _ couldn't _ come for a visit at  _ such _ a critical time—and although Sarah had assured her that she understood, she didn't. Not really. But her mother had always been career-driven that way. It was why she’d chosen to walk out on her own daughter in the first place.

Her thumb finally stopped bleeding, and Sarah resumed chopping vegetables for the beef stew she was throwing together for dinner tonight. It was her day off, which automatically made it her day to cook. She didn’t really mind cooking, but she did wish Karen would take herself off somewhere else. Like grocery shopping or over to the neighbor’s house for a few hours of gossip. She really wasn’t in the mood for company at the moment.

The glimpse of dark yellow caught her eye, reminded her of the thick manilla envelope teetering on the corner of the kitchen table. It was still unopened even a week after its arrival, but she knew what it contained. Divorce papers. She and Augustine had been separated for eight months. The moment she’d found him in bed with  _ that woman _ (whose name she still didn’t know, nor did she care to learn), she’d packed a suitcase for herself and her daughter and left straightaway for her childhood home.

When she’d married, she had moved only a few miles away—practically within walking distance, really—and in all this time she hadn’t returned to her own house even once. She was afraid to, afraid of what she might yet again walk in on. Besides, it wasn’t even her house. Augustine had already owned the place before they’d gotten married, left to him by some deceased relative or other. It had been an inexpensive and convenient solution at the time, and the house  _ was _ beautiful. A lot like the one she’d grown up in, with plenty of room inside and a big backyard outside. And the beloved park where Sarah used to act out so many of her fantasies was still completely accessible. It was the perfect place for raising a family, exactly what a newlywed couple with their first child already on the way needed. Sarah had never imagined she’d be in danger of losing it someday.

She’d even left the family dog there, for which Katie had yet to forgive her, but Karen wasn’t fond of large, hairy animals, so he’d had to stay behind. Sarah could only hope her husband remembered to feed Ambrosius on a daily basis. He could be so scatterbrained when he delved into his work, teaching mythology courses at the university where she’d met him. He’d only been a student teacher back then (more like an errand boy for the  _ established _ professors, he often joked). It had practically been love at first sight for her. He was  _ cultured _ . Handsome, charismatic, and very grown-up. He, in fact, reminded her a great deal of Jeremy, her mother’s boyfriend, whom she’d had something of a crush on in her younger days. And, if she was being  _ completely _ honest with herself, he reminded her a little of a certain  _ other _ handsome, charismatic gentleman she’d once known. One who’d run her through one of the most magical and exciting adventures of her teenaged life, and then vanished from it forever.

Sarah gave herself a mental shake before her mind could wander further into dangerous memories. That had been practically another life, almost like a dream. And she was the only one who remembered. Toby had barely been two years old, much too young to remember anything about the Labyrinth. And although she used to tell him stories about her unusual friends and their adventures, he was almost thirteen now and  _ much _ too grown up for silly fairy tales.

At least her Katie still enjoyed them, Sarah thought fondly, although she supposed it wouldn’t be too much longer before her daughter decided she was also too grown up for such things. She’d always been more of a practical, sensible child; she took after  _ neither _ of her parents in that aspect. Sarah told stories of the Labyrinth more for her own benefit than for Katie’s. Just to make sure she wouldn’t completely forget the people she’d met during her brief time there, whom she hadn’t seen since before Katie had been born. Since before she’d even graduated high school.     


For awhile, Hoggle and Sir Didymus had visited every few nights, speaking to her in her world through the small vanity mirror that somehow connected theirs. Ludo also would join them every once in awhile, his large shaggy body filling every inch of the wooden mirror frame. Frankly, it had looked uncomfortable, being all squished together like that. Sarah had often invited them through to visit in her bedroom, as they’d done that first night, but they always politely refused. Something about transporting between worlds requiring a lot of magic, and Jareth might get wind of their little visits and be … not so happy about it, considering.

Sarah had always suspected the Goblin King already knew about their visits—he seemed the type to know everything about everybody, after all—but she never pressed the issue. Ludo really was rather too large for her cozy bedroom, and she hated having her space invaded by anyone, even good friends. So, she’d been content to chat through the mirror with them, relating events of her (relatively dull and normal) life, and listening eagerly to their stories about the events in theirs. Didymus did most of the talking on these occasions, as he was the best storyteller of the three and, besides, once the excitable little fox knight  _ really _ got going, it was hard to get a word in edgewise.

It was these stories that Sarah repeated to her little brother and, later, to her daughter (with a few added embellishments of her own). Toby had loved them, and so did Katie, and Sarah wondered if maybe she ought to write them down sometime, put them together in a collection for either of the children to pass on to  _ their _ kids when the time came. And in this way she could be sure that her dear friends would never, ever be forgotten.

Even if it seemed like, for all accounts and purposes, they had completely forgotten about  _ her _ .

After a couple of years, happening so gradually that she’d hardly noticed, Sarah had come to realize that her friends’ visits were coming less and less. Daily visits that occurred three or four times a week became three or four times a month. Then twice a month. Then once or twice every few months. When she pressed for reasons, Hoggle had been rather vague, but he’d always been a terrible liar and she knew that, although he’d assured her things were fine and dandy in the Underground, all was not well in his world. When she grew more insistent that he tell her what was going on, however, he became defensive and edgy, told her in no uncertain terms that it was best she keep her nose in her own business and out of his. And that had been the end of it.

If Sarah recalled correctly, that had also been one of the last times she’d spoken with the grouchy little dwarf.

Not that she was willing to just sit back and take his advice, of course. She was  _ far _ too stubborn to let the subject go so easily. But she had no idea what she could do to amend the problem. For starters, how could she even reach the Labyrinth again? The mirror seemed to be a portal, but only from their side and she certainly didn’t possess the magic to use it. The only sure way she knew to reach them would be to call upon Jareth. And given how things had turned out the first time that happened, she wasn’t about to tempt the Goblin King’s wrath by invoking his name a  _ second _ time. Besides, the only thing she had to wish away was herself, and she wasn’t about to put her life into the hands of someone whom she was certain hated her now. For breaking his pride, at least, if not his entire kingdom.

The only thing she could do in the end was just sit back and wait and hope that her friends might come back someday, and try to ignore the sharp sting of rejection their disappearance had wrought.

Perhaps, Sarah thought, as she loaded chopped vegetables and beef into the crock-pot to simmer, that was where it had all gone so wrong. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so desperate to cling to her tenuous grasp on the Labyrinth and its inhabitants, she never would have enrolled in those weekend mythology courses at the university, hoping to learn about  _ something _ in regards to the Underground. Perhaps stories of its king? Or even its denizens. Or, dare she say, some ancient method of traveling to and from that world.

And if she hadn’t taken those classes, maybe she never would have laid eyes on Augustine Harrison Bradshaw. No matter that he was already twenty-seven to her mere seventeen-and-a-half years, and well into adulthood; Sarah had begun to suspect by this point that she was attracted to older men in general. Especially tall, gorgeous men with blond hair and intense eyes and mysterious auras. First Jeremy-the-actor. Then—grudgingly admitted—Jareth (who was a friggin’  _ faerie king _ for cripes sake!), and now her mythology professor.

What had been even more astounding was that he’d seemed to like her  _ back _ . At least, well enough to take her virginity and knock her up after only their sixth date, which had been to celebrate her eighteenth (and first  _ legal _ ) birthday. Sarah scowled darkly, stabbed the tip of her knife into the cutting board hard enough so it stood upright, wobbling slightly from the force. She winced and hoped Karen hadn’t noticed. Her stepmom tended to be as particular about her expensive kitchen appliances as Sarah used to be about her bedroom.

As she began cleaning up the counter, she heard the rumble of a school bus slowing in front of the house, pulling up to the curb on squeaky breaks to unload its passengers. She glanced at the clock with a smile. Three-thirty on the dot. Never a moment late. A minute later the front door burst open and Toby’s jubilant shout of “We’re home!” resounded through the house.

“Shoes off and coats hung!” Karen reprimanded before her son could forget and leave his things in a heap on the floor, as he tended to do. The scuffle of activity, and the sound of feet pounding up the stairs; that would be Toby, Sarah mused, probably off to catch his favorite cartoon on the small TV set up in his room. A lighter step caught her attention as a little girl bounced into the kitchen, backpack dragging on the floor behind her. She grinned and made a beeline to Karen, threw her arms around her in a hug. “Hi, Grandma!” she chirped. “Guess what we did in class today? Ms. Julia gave us notebooks and told us to write our own story about what we like, and we have to draw pictures for it and everything.” She withdrew her hug and stepped back, a thoughtful frown on her face. “I don’t know what I should write, though.”

“Well, what do you like?” Karen prompted.

Katie shrugged. “I like school.” Her face lit up. “And I like your sugar cookies!”

Sarah laughed. “I think that’s a hint for a snack, huh?”

“Mommy!” Katie abandoned her grandmother to throw her arms around her mother’s waist and grin up at her, chin pressed to her stomach. “Can I have a cookie?” She offered her best puppy expression through eyes that were just like her mother’s, and Sarah mussed her fine blond hair, which was in serious danger of unraveling from its long braid. “You can have  _ two _ cookies,” she bargained, “if you promise to offer one of them to your uncle.”

“Okay!” Katie nodded emphatically, and although Sarah knew Toby would probably never catch a glimpse of that second cookie, she decided not to call her on it. Katie was just too adorable, and she realized, right then and there, that it was worth it. Whatever had happened in the past, her foolish decision to marry Augustine when he’d proposed not too long after learning she was pregnant (and she  _ knew _ that he’d only done it to save face, if not his career). Whether or not her marriage did, indeed, end in shambles, in a  _ far _ too similar fashion as her parents’ … it was all worth it, because she’d gotten a beautiful little daughter out of the deal, and unlike her house and everything in it, Katie was one hundred percent  _ hers _ , and nothing was ever going to change that.

Sarah sighed, glanced again at the envelope on the table. The one with her name typed in neat, impersonal print on the label in the middle—along with her  _ parents’ _ address, not her own—and the neat, impersonal name and return address of an unknown lawyer on the top left-hand corner. It was funny; she’d never realized lawyers even  _ put _ return addresses on things like this, offering a modicum of privacy for their clients, perhaps. But maybe Augustine had insisted his lawyer do so, just to mess with her. Just to let her know in no uncertain terms that he was ready to end this farce of a marriage and go off and have affairs with as many women as he liked, guilt-free.

Charming, handsome men like that were all the same, she supposed. Jeremy had eventually abandoned her mother in London … or maybe her mother had abandoned him; Sarah really wouldn’t have put it past the woman to move on to greener pastures when she got bored. She’d done it once already, after all.

As for the Goblin King, well… Sarah really didn’t want to think about  _ his _ conquests. He was immortal, after all. He’d probably lived long enough to have had  _ thousands _ of them by this point. And who knew  _ how _ many children he might’ve fathered as a result? Sarah knew next to nothing about him. Hoggle and Didymus never brought him up, and she’d always been too shy to broach the subject and inquire after his health or something, afraid it might raise suspicions and possibly a little teasing. A guy like Jareth, after all, was way out of the league of  _ any _ human being, much less an inexperienced teenager such as herself.

“Where are you going?”

Karen’s question snapped Sarah out of gloomy thoughts. She realized with some surprise that she’d unknowingly picked up the envelope and had been headed out of the kitchen, following her daughter. She blinked and pondered for a moment, sighed in defeat. “To my room,” she decided. “I’ve got some reading to do, I guess. Call me when dinner’s ready, okay?”

    Karen offered a sympathetic smile as she watched her stepdaughter walk dejectedly away. This was, after all, what she’d been trying to get her to do for the better part of a week now. She knew from experience that this sort of situation was devastating, but Sarah couldn’t keep avoiding the responsibility of dealing with it, if only for Katie’s sake. The sooner she faced facts and got the whole messy business over with, the sooner she could get her and her daughter’s lives back on track and into some semblance of normalcy.

Karen sat back and sipped her coffee, watched the minutes tick by, and wished it was six o'clock so her own dear Robert would be finished with work and come home. Suddenly, all she wanted was curl up in his arms and remind herself—and him—of just how lucky they both were for everything they had.

 


	3. Two

    Sarah lay on the bed in the guest room that had served as her bedroom for the past eight months, a cold compress over her eyes. Despite the relatively early hour, she kept the lights dimmed and the shades drawn, hoping it would help ward off the tension headache she could feel developing in that spot right between her eyes. She’d just gotten off the phone with her divorce lawyer, who’d wanted to go over the proceedings of tomorrow’s court case one final time, to make sure she knew what she was supposed to say and do in order to get her fair share of monetary assets out of the deal.

_How ironic,_ came the humorless thought. She’d never realized just how much getting a divorce resembled putting on a play. Move _just so_ , say _exactly this_ , or else it could all be shot to hell, and the act would be ruined.

    “Say your right words,” she mumbled as her lips curled into a sardonic smile.

    Honestly, she didn’t really care how much money she got out of it. She knew she wouldn’t get the house—that wasn’t up for debate—but she didn’t want it anyway. And what in the world would she do with furnishings when she had nowhere to put them? The only concerning matter to her was her daughter. In terms of child support, she would put on her little play and make sure she squeezed every penny she could out of that heartless bastard, if it meant ensuring that Katie would be taken care of until she turned eighteen. Augustine was wealthy enough, thanks to his family; he’d been left with a small fortune when his father died three years ago, so he could damn well see to it that his only daughter never wanted for anything.

    It was the fact that, within those pages and pages of documents she’d repeatedly gone over with a fine-tooth comb, not a single mention of her husband’s parental rights had come up. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t asked for anything regarding joint custody. He’d asked for visitation rights, but it looked as if he had no interest in helping to raise his own daughter. No weekend visits, no splitting her down the middle, living six months in one house and six months in the other…

    Not that Sarah wasn't _relieved_ by this. She had spent the first two years of her parents’ divorce in just such an arrangement, living in Manhattan with her mother (and Jeremy) over summer vacation and winter breaks. Spending the other nine months in the house she’d been born and raised in, so she wouldn’t have to transfer schools. Life there was all so normal and _boring_.

    As a teenager she’d _loved_ the excitement of living with her actress mother, spending as much time behind-the-scenes in the playhouses as she did at home. She’d felt like a grownup when her mother took her to bars with her friends after a successful show, celebrating all through the night. Cocktails and expensive food and beautiful, glittering clothes and jewelry … it had all been so _glamorous_ , and Sarah was determined to have such a life for herself when she grew up.

    Then, of course, her father had decided that such a hectic lifestyle was no place to raise a teenaged girl. Especially one as strong-willed as Sarah, who was so clearly influenced by the behavior of the adults around her. He’d filed for full custody, having just remarried himself, and the courts had granted it.

    Sarah’s mother didn’t even put up a fight.

    Sarah had hated her father for that, and she’d been sure her “evil stepmother” was the one to blame for convincing him to take her away from that life. Add a new little half-brother into the mix, and she’d been certain it was all some elaborate plot to gain a free babysitter and household slave.

    So many years later, though, Sarah could admit she’d been ridiculous. She’d so often accused Toby of being spoiled rotten but she’d been spoiled herself, by her mother, her mother’s friends… Her father had been right to pull her away from that world and force her into a life of stability. And now the thought of her own daughter possibly going through such an ordeal made Sarah shudder.

    So, really, she should be _grateful_ that her husband didn’t want Katie. Had he demanded joint custody—or, heaven help her, _full_ custody—she wouldn’t have stood a fighting chance. After all, _he_ was the one with the house, the money, and the steady, full-time career. Everything the courts thought _important_ to properly raise a child.

    Sarah, on the other hand, was currently homeless, stuck living in her parents’ house, working two part-time jobs in an attempt to save enough money for an apartment close to the neighborhood. Just so she wouldn’t have to uproot Katie’s life any more than it already had been. Now she wished she’d tried to finish her college courses on top of raising a child, because it seemed a mere high school diploma just wasn’t going to get her very far, career-wise. And on top of that, while she was relieved that she wouldn’t have to fight Augustine to keep her own daughter, she was also completely outraged on Katie’s behalf. Exactly _how_ was she supposed to explain to a seven-year-old that Daddy didn’t _want_ her anymore?

    A hot tear slipped down Sarah’s cheek from the corner of her eye. She irritably brushed it away, knocking the compress to the floor. Outside, a flash of lightning briefly outlined the half-drawn shades, illuminated the wooden floor. She mentally counted to five seconds, before the low growl of thunder followed. A storm was approaching, it seemed. More silence, and then another flicker of light. She only got to three when the rumble followed it. It was coming on fast. She frowned, thoughtful. Toby had taken Katie to the park to play, and it was a bit of a walk. They probably wouldn’t make it back before the storm hit, and she didn’t like the idea of them out in the middle of it by themselves.

    Inspiration struck, and she abruptly sat up, headache forgotten as she scanned the floor for her sneakers. She’d go out and meet them halfway. A walk would clear her head a bit, and besides, she’d always liked the way the air smelled just before a storm. Sharp and fresh, like ozone and rain. As a kid, she used to go walking in storms, just for fun (and as an added bonus, it drove Karen crazy when she came home sopping wet, trailing mud and water). There was always the hum of tension in the air, a slight crackle that brushed the fine hairs on her arms, as if the world held its breath in anticipation.

    She slipped on her shoes and grabbed a light sweater, pounded down the stairs to snatch a pair of umbrellas out of the stand beside the door. Her parents had gone out to dinner to meet some of her father’s old college buddies. They didn’t plan to be home until very late, or very early. Which, of course, left Sarah to keep an eye on the kids. _Just like old times_ , she thought dryly, although Toby hardly needed a babysitter anymore. She pocketed a house key and was just about to step out when the telephone rang in the hallway.

    She muttered a curse and answered with an impatient “Hello?” A loud burst of static greeted her and she winced and moved the handset away from her ear. “Hello?” she repeated, a bit cautiously. More static, what sounded like a few garbled words that she couldn’t quite catch through the white noise. She thought one of them might have been her name. Thunder rumbled again, an ominous warning. She glanced toward the open front door. “Look, I can’t understand you,” she said loudly. “The storm must be interfering. I have to step out for a bit, so try calling back later, okay?” And she unceremoniously hung up. It had probably just been her lawyer again, wanting to go over the details of her case for the umpteenth time. She personally thought him a bit anal about the entire event, but she supposed that was what made him good at his job.

    She stepped outside and closed the door behind her, hopped down the porch steps just as the wind picked up with a sudden shriek. It buffeted her back as she hurried down the street, whipped her hair into a frenzy around her face and tempted a little giggle from her lips despite her sour mood. Two blocks away, she came upon the children, hunkered down against the gale. Katie walked in front as her uncle walked just behind her, pushing her along. “Ahoy there, mateys!” Sarah called. “Need a little help?”

    “Mommy!” Her daughter raced ahead and threw herself into Sarah’s arms. “The wind almost blowed me away!” she exclaimed, breathless. “Just like Dorothy and the tornado!”

    “It did, did it? I was wondering where that flying monkey had come from!” Sarah nudged her brother’s side playfully and gained a light punch in the arm in retaliation. A fat raindrop landed on her cheek, another on her upturned hand. The sky growled its displeasure. “Uh-oh!” she gasped in mock terror. “The maelstrom is about to break! The rain goblins are almost here!”

    “Oh no!” Katie shrieked in delighted terror. “They sound really mad!”

    “Don’t worry, we’ve got forcefields!” Toby grabbed one of Sarah’s umbrellas and opened it as a short torrent of cold drops hit them. He held it in front of himself and Katie like a shield, but the wind had other ideas, abruptly switching directions and threatening to turn the flimsy umbrella inside-out. “Goblins … too … strong!” he gasped as he wrestled with it. “Force-field … failing… She cannae take much more o’ this, Captain!”

    Sarah laughed loudly as another torrent of drops splattered her face. “Then there’s only one thing we can do!” she announced dramatically, and swooped down to scoop Katie over her shoulder. “ _Retreat!_ ” She broke into a sprint as the sky opened up and released its furious downpour.

    Toby whooped and followed, easily surpassing the girls as his bellows of “ _Red alert! Red alert!_ ” echoed down the street, and Katie’s joyous screams of laughter threatened to drown even the roiling thunder.  
  


* * *

  
    The phone was ringing again when the sopping trio finally made it into the house. Sarah unceremoniously dumped Katie into Toby’s arms and hurried to answer it, but the machine picked up before she could reach it. She waited patiently for the recorded greeting to finish, notepad and pen in hand to jot down the caller’s information. Instead, another burst of static came through the speaker. She grimaced, again picking up a few random, garbled words through the static before the connection abruptly cut off.

    Along with the rest of the power in the house.

    “Aw … damn it,” she muttered, and heard a snicker and a scandalized giggle from just behind her. She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”

    “Mommy has to put a quarter in the Swear Jar,” Katie whispered loudly to Toby. “I’ve almost got a whole five dollars saved up now.”

    Toby sniggered again.

    “Har har.” Sarah fished a crumpled dollar bill from her pocket, slightly damp. “Here. Prepayment.” She handed over the bill and the small flashlight she’d dug out of the drawer under the phone. Katie accepted both with another giggle and scurried up the stairs to her bedroom.

    “Think Mom and Dad’ll be home soon? Think they’re okay?” Toby shifted uncomfortably as he glanced out the living room window. He wasn’t afraid of storms, but dark places always made him edgy. Sarah often wondered if his fear of the dark wasn’t some throwback to that night so long ago, when it had been storming just like this and she’d summoned the Goblin King on him. Some deep part of his subconscious could still potentially remember, right? She tamped down a stab of guilt. What was said was said. No amount of wishful thinking would make it otherwise.

    “I don’t think they plan to be home until really late this time,” she explained. “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re fine. That was probably them calling just now to check up on us.” She switched on another flashlight and held it under her chin. “If you’re bored, we can always sit around the coffee table and tell ghost stories,” she teased.

    He pulled a face. “Eh. Can’t you just teach me to play poker or something?”

    She laughed. “We need to play something Katie will enjoy, too. How about Snakes and Ladders?”

* * *

 

    After several games of Snakes and Ladders, and then a few more of Candy Land (with a fine dinner of peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches and potato chips in between), the power had yet to turn back on, and the camping lanterns Sarah had dug out of the closet were running low on fuel. The storm had raged a good two hours before finally blowing itself out, and she wondered how many power lines it took out with it. It had been a long time since she’d witnessed a thunderstorm _that_ fierce.

    She glanced at the clock. Ten fifteen, and long past time for little girls to be in bed. _Or big ones, for that matter_ , she thought. She did, after all, have her day in court tomorrow. It wouldn’t do to show up exhausted. She tended to get emotional and overstressed when she was exhausted, and her lawyer had made it clear that she needed to remain cool and level-headed. “Okay,” she announced, “I think it’s about time to put games away and go to bed.” She ignored the expected protests and ushered the kids up the stairs to their bedrooms. Toby’s old nursery looked far more like a twelve-year-old’s playground now, and was just about as messy. Sarah gave him a lantern and hastily bid him goodnight before her neat-freak tendencies could kick in and she started tidying up the place. She’d _always_ hated a disorderly bedroom.

    Katie’s room still looked as it did when Sarah had occupied it way back when. The furniture sat in the exact same spots. The curtains still framed the window _just so_. Shelves overflowed with stuffed animals and books, knickknacks lined neatly along the edges of the dresser. Posters and pictures had been tacked all over the walls, although Katie clearly preferred her hand-drawn illustrations of horses and kittens over Sarah’s former choices of newspaper clippings and theater production posters. A tattered teddy bear held its place of honor on Katie's pillow and Sarah smiled to see it. She tucked her daughter under the familiar worn quilt with its fraying edges. “Did you brush your teeth?” she asked.

    “Yup!” Katie confirmed with a nod.

    “Did Launcelot brush his teeth?” Sarah teasingly bopped Katie's nose with the bear’s.

    “He doesn't have any teeth!” Katie squealed around her giggles.

    Sarah laughed and ruffled her golden hair. “Okay now. Settle down and go to sleep. Launcelot is tired.”

    “ _You're_ tired,” Katie accused.

    “I _am_. So I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight, Katydid.” Sarah kissed her and headed to her own room, slipped from her clothes into a pair of cut-off sweatpants and a T-shirt. She probably looked about as sexy as a bag lady in the getup, but it was comfortable and these days comfort was all that mattered. Besides, Augustine had stopped being impressed with her more risque nightwear a long time ago, so she’d long since given up wearing it.

    She sighed, pursed her lips as she examined the scattered papers on the bed. Practically a book’s worth, she thought. One of those thick, boring ones a person was forced to read in school for their least favorite class. With a sort of childish satisfaction, she gripped the edges of the designer comforter and gave a mighty shake, up-heaved its contents to send papers scattering and flying every-which-way. “Serves you right,” she murmured as she slipped between the cool sheets, pulled the comforter over her head to block out the world for a few hours. She’d be forced to face it again soon enough. For now, at least, she welcomed the comfort of sleep, ready to just forget everything for a little while.

* * *

  
    “Mommy!”

    Sarah slowly roused, groggy and disoriented. And strangely warm. The air was stifling; in her half-asleep state, it took her several moments to realize that she’d fully buried herself under the blankets. She sluggishly clawed around until she found one end and lifted it to allow cool air to flow into her makeshift nest.

    “Mommy!” the little voice said again, and she felt something prod at her, trying to shake her awake. She poked her face out from under the covers, squinted up at the small figure hovering over her.

    “Katie, it’s—” She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “—one-thirty in the morning! What are you doing up? Did you have a bad dream?”

    The little girl shook her head, expression oddly grim. “There’s a funny man asking for you,” she half-whispered, as if afraid someone else might overhear.

    “A funny man?” Sarah frowned and scrubbed sleep from her eyes, feeling slightly more alert. Not quite alert enough to understand what her daughter was _talking_ about, though. “Are you sure you didn’t have a dream?”

    “Nu-uh.” Katie shook her head emphatically. “He said the telephone didn’t work, so he had to call you this way, instead.”

    “The tele—” Now Sarah was _really_ confused. “Was he the one trying to call earlier?”

    “Yes, but it didn’t work.”

    She sat up, ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “He isn’t at the _door_ , is he?” Her heart slammed against her chest at the thought. But both of the kids knew better than to answer the door to strangers, especially in the middle of the night! Unless … this man was already inside the _house_. And _that_ thought drove any remaining sleep clear out of her head. She scrambled out of bed, shoved her feet into the first pair of shoes she found, looked around the room for a suitable weapon. A tall, slender bronze statuette on the corner of the dresser caught her eye. A naked lady in art-deco style. The thing was ugly as sin and had probably cost a small fortune. She hefted it, testing its solid weight. It would do. “Okay, where’s the funny man hiding?” she asked, pushing Katie behind her as she crept into the hallway. “Is he in the living room? Your bedroom?”

    “No, he’s not in the _house_. He’s in the _mirror_.” Katie spoke as if that _should_ have been the most obvious thing in the world.

    Sarah froze, felt the world tilt crazily and realized she’d braced one hand against the wall to keep from tipping right over. “The … mirror?” Her voice emerged as a squeak. “A funny man … is in your mirror.”

    “Yup!” Katie regarded her mother strangely. “Are you sick? You look weird.”

    Sarah swallowed hard and straightened, walked in slow and measured steps down the hall toward the bedroom located at its end. She pushed open the door to find it illuminated in pink from the rose glass of her daughter's bedside lamp; apparently, power had been restored overnight. She started to step in, hesitated as she glanced at Katie. “How about you go sleep in my bed, okay?” she requested. “I want to talk to the funny man for awhile.”

    Katie shrugged, unconcerned, and trotted back to Sarah’s room without argument. _Oh, to possess the courage of a child,_ Sarah thought dryly as she stepped into the bedroom and shut the door behind her. From her position, she couldn’t see very well, so she moved further in until she could get a better look. The top of the dressing table glowed softly in a way that had nothing to do with the lamp, and her eyes widened when she stopped directly in front of it and got a first good look at the mirror.

    It was definitely _not_ her own reflection staring back at her.

    “H-Hoggle!” His name escaped, hardly louder than a whisper as her heart thumped hard against her ribs. A myriad of emotions flowed through her, come and gone so quickly that she hardly had time to _feel_ them, much less sort them out.

    “Hello, Sarah,” Hoggle replied, and his gravelly voice sounded so dearly familiar, and he looked so genuinely _glad_ to see her that tears sprang to her eyes.

    “Where have you _been_?” she gasped, as the bronze statuette she still held slipped, forgotten, from nerveless fingers. It landed with a heavy thud on the floor, and the startling noise made her jump. “Do you know how _worried_ I’ve been? You all just … _disappeared_! Without so much as a goodbye, and I had no way of contacting you or knowing if anything had _happened_ to you and—” She had to stop talking, then, because the lump in her throat had grown too big and tight to speak around. So she stood there and glowered at him, swallowed convulsively to ease the ache in her throat, and swore that she _wouldn’t_ break down and bawl like the little girl she no longer was.

    Hoggle had removed his cap and now twisted it in his hands, his expression so full of remorse that Sarah almost felt guilty for going off on him like that. Almost. She’d _owed_ him a good chewing-out for just abandoning her, and he owed _her_ one heck of an explanation. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” he began, soft and contrite. “I knows just sayin’ that won’t fix anything. Should’ve tried harder t’ comes back, but it just gots too difficult. Too dangerous t’ try an’ talk to yas anymore. We thought … it’d be better t’ not risk it.” He gave her a one-shouldered shrug and a crooked smile. “Figured after a bit, you’d get over it an’ go on with life, like you was supposed to.”

    “How could you expect that?” she exploded, throwing her hands out. “You three were my _best friends_! How could I just _forget_?”

    “But humans ain’t even supposed t’ keep in contact, ya know? They ain’t supposed t’ _remember_. When they get sent back, they ferget all about the Labyrinth. ‘Course, none o’ them ever did what _you_ did. You beat Jareth’s game, beat the Labyrinth. Don’t surprise _me_ none that you remembered, even after we … lost touch.” His smile was equal parts smug and impressed, and his eyes gleamed with pride. “‘S why I’m here now,” he added. “‘Cause I thinks _you_ can help. I shouldn’t evens be talkin’ t’ you—Jareth’d boot me straight into the Bog if he found out—but it’s worth the risk.”

    Sarah’s stern expression melted into confusion, touched with alarm. “Help with _what_?” she pressed. “Hoggle, what’s going on? Did … did something happen?” She absently worried a thumbnail. “I always felt … maybe something was wrong, back when you three started visiting less and … acting _strange_. And when you disappeared I wanted to find my way back but I just didn’t know how. I’d even considered calling on _Jareth_ to get there. That’s how worried I was.” She offered a sardonic grin at his snort.

    “Good thing you didn’t. He’d‘ve _never_ let you go again.”

    “Yeah.” She nodded. “I figured as much.” She shifted on her feet, settled herself into the wooden chair to be more eye-level with him. “Will you tell me what’s happening? Why did you stop visiting? Why are you risking Jareth’s almighty wrath to contact me _now_?”

    He shifted, brow furrowed. “Well, honestly, Jareth ain’t in much of a position t’ do much about _anything_ , even if he knows. An’ I’m pretty sure he does know, tied to the magic as he is.”

    “What do you mean?” Despite herself, she couldn’t tamp the flicker of alarm that caused her heart to quicken in her chest. “I-is something wrong with him?”

    Hoggle’s sigh was deep and weary and filled with a decade of hopeless struggle. “We _tried_ t’ get him t’ ask you for help a lot earlier. But you’d … moved on by then. Like we wanted. He refused. Too proud fer ‘is own good.” He snorted in disgust. “Kept sayin’ he’d handle it hisself. Flat-out threatened t’ dunk us all in the Bog an’ then banish us t’ the Wastelands fer good measure just fer _thinkin’_ about askin’. We didn’t dare disobey.”

    “Hoggle, _what happened_?” Her voice was sharp with worry, and she took several deep breaths in a useless attempt to calm down.

    He shifted again, placed his wrinkled cap upon his head, and met her gaze. “Started not long after you left here, an’ got lots worse the more time passed. Ain’t nothin’ anyone can do. Not even the Goblin King.” He shook his head, hands twisting his shirt in place of his hat. “Jareth—the Labyrinth—Everything’s _dyin’_ , Sarah. An’ we thinks you’s th’ only one who can fix it.”

 


	4. Three

    “ _D-dying?_ ” Sarah’s world tilted for the second time in one evening. She braced both hands against the dressing table to keep from sliding right out of the chair; her pounding heart sounded like a cacophony of drums in her ears as she sought to process Hoggle’s revelation. “H-how?” she stuttered. “ _Why?_ ”

    “Nobody knows,” he replied. “It ain’t natural. It’s … it’s like poison, spreadin’ all over, an’ what happens t’ the Labyrinth happens t’ Jareth, too.”

    It felt like someone had punched her in the gut. Out of all the things Hoggle could have told her, that the Goblin King himself was _dying_ had to be at the very bottom of the list. He’d seemed so … powerful. _Invincible_ . She struggled to think of what to say. “I’m sorry” hardly seemed like an adequate enough statement. “You said … this started happening … after I defeated his game,” she began slowly. The dread deepened. “Are you saying—Is it _my_ fault?”

    Hoggle’s eyes widened and he hastily waved his hands. “No, no, no! Nobody blames _you_ ,” he hastened to assure her. “Yous the first one t’ ever _defeats_ the Labyrinth. An’ who knew what’d happen? This coulds just be the natural consequences of _losin’_.”

    “That everything _dies_?” Sarah felt _wretched_. She’d been so proud to have beaten Jareth at his own game, but if winning meant that his entire magical kingdom would die a slow and poisonous death as a result… She heaved a massive shudder at the thought, crossing her arms against the ominous chill. “How … how can _I_ help?” she whispered.

    Hoggle seemed to slump as his hands went to work at his shirt again, twisting the worn linen into hopeless wrinkles. “Dunno,” he admitted, bushy brows drawn. “Buts if yas comes here, talks ta Jareth…”

    Sarah opened her mouth to reply, to say of _course_ she’d try and help … but a light tapping against the closed door caused the words to stick in the back of her throat. “Mommy?” came Katie’s tired voice from the other side. “Is the funny man gone yet?”

    “N-no, baby, not yet,” she called back. “Go back to sleep. Everything’s just fine.”

    A moment of silence. “Okay,” came the soft response.

    Sarah waited a few more moments before turning back to the mirror, only to find Hoggle gaping at her with open astonishment. She offered a small smile. “That was my daughter, the little girl you met earlier,” she explained. “Her name is Katerina—Named after her paternal grandmother—but we just call her Katie.”

    “Yer daughter! Cor,” Hoggle breathed. “I didn’t knows yas had a _daughter_.”

    She shrugged, smile faint. “You were gone a long time. A lot’s happened. I … moved on. Like you said.” Another realization hit her and she tilted her head. “How did you know to find me here, anyway? This isn't even my home anymore. I'm just … visiting.”

    Hoggle blinked. “Didn't have to. Just thoughts about yas an’ Jareth’s crystal did the lookin’. Would've found yas even on th’ other side o’ the world.”

    Sarah thought about that. “You used Jareth’s crystal? Did he _give_ it to you?” When the dwarf squirmed guiltily, a slow grin spread across her face. “You _filched_ the Goblin King's crystal?”

    “What of it?” he muttered, grouchy. “Weren't like he couldn't spare none.”

    She laughed. “I'm so proud of you! You found your courage!”

    “Bah. Weren’t courage. It were _desperation_.” But despite the sour protest, his ruddy cheeks flushed even darker at the compliment and a small grin twitched about his mouth. The smile vanished again and he regarded her with serious intent. “So, will yas come?” he asked. “Will yas help save th’ Labyrinth?”

    Sarah felt heartsick, emotions torn. More than anything, she wanted to help, but… She bit her lip, closed her eyes as she struggled to find the courage to say what she knew she had to. “I’m sorry,” she finally whispered. “Hoggle, I’m so sorry, but I just _can’t_.”

    When she dared peek at him, the open astonishment on his face nearly undid her. Clearly, her refusal was the _last_ thing he’d expected. “It isn’t that I don’t _want_ to,” she desperately tried to explain, “but leaving right now, going into some unknown danger… I’m not fifteen anymore. I _can’t_ just up and disappear. People would worry. And I have responsibilities. There are … things going on in my own life that I _have_ to deal with. And I _can’t_ abandon Katie. She _needs_ me. I won’t do to her what … what _my_ mother did to _me_.”

    Hoggle remained silent for a long while, his gaze fixed on some point beyond the mirror’s frame. The shock slowly dissipated, melted into resignation and hurt. “I understands,” he finally mumbled, although he sounded anything but understanding. “Ya gots yer own life ta lives.”

    “Hoggle…”

    He waved off her protest. “Can’t make yas change yer mind, an’ yas ain’t wrong. That li’l girl gots ta come first. Dunno what’ll happen if yas comes here or how long it’d takes ta fix things.”

    “Isn't there another way?” Sarah whispered. “Someone else to help deal with this?”

    He shrugged. “Can tries an’ gets help from other kingdoms, buts th’ faekin don’t gots much t’ do wi’ th’ Goblin Kingdom. Jareth ain’t real popular wi’ his own kind.”

    Sarah hadn’t realized there _were_ other Underground kingdoms, but she supposed it made sense; the land beyond the Labyrinth had looked vast and empty, but surely the Goblin Kingdom wasn’t the only one to exist in that world. And Jareth couldn’t _possibly_ be the only faerie living in it. “I’m sure if you seek help from one of the neighboring kingdoms, they’d have a … a spell or something that could fix whatever is ailing the Labyrinth. They have magic, right? I don’t have that kind of power. Even if I came, I don’t think I could actually help anyway,” she tried to reason. He just shrugged, still not meeting her gaze. The betrayal and hurt remained clear on his face and she had to swallow several times to speak. “Hoggle, please,” she whispered around the growing knot in her throat. “I’m _sorry_. I really, truly _am_."

    “Yeah. So’s I,” he muttered and finally met her gaze, his pale blue eyes dim with vanquished hopes. “Guess there ain't much else ta say, then. Except goodbye.”

    Her eyes widened. “Y-you’ll call again, won’t you? Let me know how things are going there?”

    “No. This’ll be the last time,” he replied softly. “Magic’s too unstable an’ it drains too fast. Can’t risk makin’ things worse ‘n they are. This’s goodbye fer reals now. I'm sorry it hads ta end like this, Sarah.”

    She swallowed hard, opened her mouth to say … _something_. To beg him not to go? To tell him she'd changed her mind? But the image in the mirror began to flicker, fade out, and she couldn’t force the first word past her trembling lips before it vanished entirely and left her facing her own shell-shocked reflection. Alone.  


* * *

   
    It took her almost twenty minutes to finally stem the heartbroken sobs that wracked her entire body. It was difficult to muffle the cries, afraid the children would wake and come investigate, and how could she _possibly_ explain what was wrong? She hadn't cried so much since the first time she realized the portal had closed for good and she'd never see Hoggle, Ludo, and Didymus again. A decade of suppressed grief poured out of her, somehow made so much _worse_ because she'd never realized before just how much _hope_ she still clung to that she might one day see her magical friends again. Now that hope was also gone, because even if they found some way to save the Labyrinth, even if everything returned to normal, she was certain none of them would attempt to contact her again. Not after the way she'd essentially _abandoned_ them when they needed her most.

    She was certain they'd _never_ forgive her for that. She wouldn't have forgiven her, either.

    Sarah slowly sat up, drew in a deep, shuddering breath, blotted the remaining tears from her puffy eyes. She snatched a tissue from the box on the vanity—the decorative one covered in seashells that Katie had made in summer camp last year—blew her nose and slowly got to her feet. Her head pounded and her breaths still came in shuddering gasps, composure as fragile as a hollowed-out eggshell that might crack at any moment, but she held herself together through sheer force of will.

    She went back to her bedroom and found Katie sprawled across the width of the mattress, rolled up in the blankets and fast asleep. A watery giggle escaped before she could catch it. _Who needs dogs or husbands,_ she decided, _when you have a bed-hog in a daughter?_ Carefully, she scooched Katie's dead weight over just far enough to collapse beside her, feet dangling over the mattress edge as she dragged the nearest pillow down to cushion her head.

    Katie mumbled and stirred, peeked her head out from her blanket-burrito to blink at her mother sleepily. “Is the funny man gone now?” she asked around a yawn.

    “Yeah. He's g-gone.” Sarah nearly choked on the reply.

    “Will he come back again?” Katie wanted to know.

    “No.” Sarah couldn't quite keep the little sob from escaping along with the word. “I don't think he'll be coming back again.”

    Katie remained silent for a few moments, contemplative. Then she asked, “How come you're sad, Mommy?”

    Sarah released a short laugh hidden beneath a flurry of little sobs. She should have known she couldn't put anything past the little girl. “Mommy feels like a pretty terrible person right now,” she confessed.

    “How come?”

    “Because,” she sighed, “she had to let down some friends who needed her help, and she's pretty sure they're really mad at her right now.” She turned and tucked Katie in close to her side, kissed her messy hair and added, “Okay, now. It's time to go back to sleep.”

    Katie snuggled up close and said stoutly, “ _I_ don't think you're a terrible person.” She planted a sloppy kiss on her mother's cheek and settled back into her nest.

    Sarah sniffled around a grin and poked the blanket-worm. “Are you gonna share some of those covers with me?”

    “But I'm all cozy and warm and if I get cold I can’t sleep,” came the logical reply. But a small hand wormed itself free and tugged one of the sheets loose.

    “Thank you for your generosity, Princess,” Sarah teased as she yanked the sheet free to roll herself into it. It wasn't long at all before she drifted into exhausted slumber.  
  


* * *

   
    Her dreams came, disjointed and nightmarish. Horror images of sunken faces and twisted, decaying bodies; crumbling walls wet with rot and mold; withering forests of skeletal trees. And an empty sky, blackened with the smoke of a burning castle. And when she finally jerked awake—gasping great, heaving gulps of air—the lingering image of mismatched eyes dimmed with death in a gray, sunken face refused to leave her mind. She lay there until the terror ebbed from her body enough to allow her to move, and her hand stretched out to touch her daughter’s sleeping form, seeking reassurance.

    She touched nothing but empty mattress.

    She blinked and raised her head, turned to look at the spot where Katie was supposed to be and found the bed empty except for herself. Her heart lurched, but she forced down instinctive panic to think. _There is a perfectly logical explanation,_ she told herself. Probably, she had thrashed too much in her night terrors and Katie had gotten up and gone back to her own bed to sleep.

    Sarah crawled from the tangled sheets and hurried down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom. She threw open the door and saw immediately that Katie wasn’t there. The bedside lamp still cast its rosy glow over the empty room, caught within the glass eyes of the stuffed animals lining the shelves; a watchful, sinister light. Spooked, she fled, rushed to her parents’ bedroom and peeked inside, hoping to find Katie tucked in between her grandparents. Still empty; Robert and Karen hadn’t yet made it home. They had likely decided to just spend the night at a hotel rather than travel so late, especially if they’d been drinking. It wouldn't be the first time. Robert was nothing if not a responsible driver.

    _Toby,_ Sarah thought. His was the only room left and Katie often used to crawl into bed with him whenever she had a sleepover there. Of course, she hadn’t done this in several years, but it had been a rather strange night and perhaps Sarah’s nightmares had frightened her enough to seek Toby's comfort?

    Sarah hurried to her brother’s room and opened the door to peer inside. It was too dark. Ominous. What had happened to the nightlight Toby usually slept with? A flash of deja vu presented itself and she hastily flipped on the wall lamp. She was only half-surprised when the room remained dark. “Toby,” she whispered as she cautiously moved further inside. “Katie?” She suddenly felt fifteen again, creeping toward her brother's crib as shadows danced and snickered around her.

    Even in the darkness, she could tell the large bed was empty. Even the sheets had gone missing, she noted. She stopped and drew in deep breaths, hands tangled in her hair as she sought to keep swelling panic at bay long enough to _think_. A quick glance at Toby’s Star Wars Yoda wall clock showed her it was almost six in the morning. Perhaps both of the children had decided to get up already. It was the weekend and, like most kids, the days they _could_ sleep in tended to be the days they woke up before everyone else. They might be in the living room watching Saturday cartoons and chowing down on an entire box of Fruit Loops or something. She nodded resolutely to herself, turned to go find them, but the sudden chill of a cool breeze brushed across her back and made her freeze in her tracks.

    She glanced over her shoulder to the large French windows. Homemade curtains, decorated with images of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, fluttered softly as another chilly breeze slipped past. Eyes wide, she approached the window with hand outstretched and slowly drew aside one of the curtains.

    She nearly collapsed at the sight that greeted her.

    In place of her own backyard, a dark, chaotic _maelstrom_ of a landscape met her eyes. The sky roiled, a sickly yellow hue that had nothing to do with sunrise. The earth beneath looked even more parched than the last time she’d seen it. Blackened stumps of trees, sharp spindles of dead grasses, an expanse of ground that looked as cracked as broken pottery. A wasteland that was eerily reminiscent of her dreams. And far off in the distance, the rising turrets and spires and walls of the Labyrinth could just be glimpsed through the yellowish smog that hazed over everything.

    “It … _can’t_ be,” she whispered as she backed slowly away, only to yelp in pain when her bare foot landed on something hard and sharp. She lifted her heel to see what she’d stepped on and found a small, silver ring with a ruby embedded in its center. She picked it up with a curious frown. A piece of costume jewelry. She’d owned a ring like this once, hadn’t she? Only she hadn’t seen it in years, because she’d given it to … given it…

    Her thoughts stuttered to a halt as the implications hit her. She shook her head in denial. “It can’t be,” she repeated, as if saying it often enough might make it true. She looked toward the window again, dared to draw back the other curtain, and dim light glinted off another small object resting innocently on the low sill. Her stomach lurched as she picked up the beaded bracelet to examine it more closely. “It’s impossible,” she murmured, held it up so the faceted beads gleamed in the yellow light. Bracelets like this were a dime-a-dozen. She’d owned plenty of them in her life and had passed most of them to her daughter for her own dress-up play sessions. _This probably belongs to Katie,_ Sarah reasoned desperately. _Her toys end up in the oddest places sometimes._

    But even as she fed herself these excuses, she knew they were lies. She’d made this bracelet herself. She distinctly recalled sitting at her dresser, stringing the multicolored, plastic beads onto their elastic thread as she recited lines from her favorite playbook.

    She also recalled how Hoggle’s eyes had gleamed with delight when she’d handed this selfsame bracelet over to him in exchange for his help in getting through the Labyrinth.

    Sarah’s legs slid out from under her and she landed on her knees with a muffled thud, stared down at the floor as her mind reeled in shock. It was just too much of a coincidence, finding both the long-lost ring _and_ bracelet at the same time. In the very same _room_. Couple that with two missing children and all the denial in the world would not change the one, simple fact that her daughter and brother both had been kidnapped and dragged into the dying Labyrinth.


	5. Four

   In retrospect, she really should have taken a moment to slip on a pair of shoes.

    Flip Flops, bedroom slippers… Even a pair of Toby’s sneakers—and he’d grown enough now that she could almost _fit_ them—would have been better than traipsing around this nightmare landscape in her bare feet. The ground felt like sunbaked clay against her soles, warm and rough. Clusters of dead weeds stood tall and brittle between outcroppings of boulders. They snapped as easily as glass needles with the slightest brush against them and they were just as sharp, razor-edges slicing skin.

   The air hung in a thick, yellowish miasma that clogged Sarah’s throat like a tangible thing. On occasion, a brief wind would pick up, blow through the dead underbrush with a sound eerily reminiscent of goblins whispering and snickering from the shadows. It gave Sarah the disquieting sensation of being watched. Despite that, the breezes would have been a welcome relief from the stagnancy of the wasteland, except each one carried the faintest trace of something foul and rotting that forced her to press her arm to her nose and breathe shallowly until it passed. She wondered uneasily if the Bog had somehow overrun its borders and polluted the entirety of the land. _That_ would certainly account for everything succumbing to a slow and poisonous death.

    She took her time navigating the steep hillside. Unlike her first journey, she was on no set time constraints and one careless misstep could mean a long and painful tumble to the bottom of the rocky hill. Worry for her daughter and brother continually gnawed at her, but she comforted herself with the hope that they were both perfectly fine. They were, after all, merely the bait to lure her here and if whoever had taken them expected her to cooperate, then they’d be wise to ensure their continuing safety.

    She wanted to blame Jareth for this. After all, stealing children _was_ his specialty. From what she’d learned, though, it seemed unlikely that he had anything to do with it. This particular brand of kidnapping didn’t really feel like his style, anyway. As far as she knew, he never took without first being _asked_.

    Still, the alternative answer was almost too horrible to contemplate, so she refused to think about _who_ had dragged Katie and Toby to this desolate place and concentrated simply on reaching the bottom of the hill in one piece.

    She had no idea how much time had passed. If there was still a sun, she couldn’t see it through the haze. Besides that, time had a habit of following no set laws in the Underground; for all she knew, only a few minutes had ticked by despite that it felt as if she’d been walking for hours. She’d grown hot and sweaty from her exertion, shirt sticking uncomfortably to her back. Her bared arms and legs burned where they’d brushed the sharp-bladed weeds and her feet—despite her cautious navigation—had begun to sting and throb from the numerous sharp rocks she’d encountered. Sitting on her butt and scooting down the hill didn’t really help matters; she risked shredding her makeshift pajamas on the rough ground by doing so. At this rate, she would be crawling before she ever reached the bottom!

    Not for the first time, she cursed herself for her foolishness. Rather than taking time to make proper preparations for such a hike, she’d allowed her panic to overrule her sense and had simply scrambled through the portal. She’d realized her lapse of judgment, of course, the moment she reached the other side and landed solidly in a large cluster of needled grass. She’d immediately tried to return, but the door had already closed and left her trapped, forced to deal with the painful consequences of her bad decision.

    At long last, Sarah reached the base of the hill. Across a familiar clearing stood the outermost wall of the Labyrinth. Even from a distance it towered over her, dark and shadowed and even more foreboding than she remembered. She had yet to see a single sign of life, but the unsettling feeling of being watched had not faded. If anything, it had only gotten stronger as she’d approached her goal. It almost felt as if the Labyrinth itself regarded her through watchful eyes. Silent, intense… Rather like some feral predator sizing up its next meal.

    She shivered and hugged herself as she limped toward the wall, searched for the doors she’d come across during her first visit. She could only hope she’d ended up in relatively the same place, or she might be forced to waste even more time searching for the entrance, which could be _anywhere_. The Labyrinth stretched for miles in either direction, with no end in sight, and she wouldn’t have been at all surprised if there was only one entrance. The way her luck seemed to be going, it was probably on the complete _opposite_ side of the Goblin Kingdom.

    Of course, she’d not quite forgotten that nothing was ever as it seemed in this place. So she really _shouldn’t_ have been surprised to find, when she turned around, that the entrance had appeared only a few feet from where she stood. And what’s more, the doors hung open just enough to make a clear invitation to step inside.

   Sarah stood and blinked for a few moments, wondered if her eyes were playing tricks. The entrance remained, both sinister and inviting at once. She approached cautiously, paused just outside to peer through the opened doors. Glistening dark stone, slick with moisture and mold, met her eyes. Just as she remembered. Weeds and deadwood choked the path. And the utter _silence_ of the place might almost deafen her. She drew in a deep breath, released it slowly through her nose. “‘Step into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly,” she quoted softly. Then, she gathered her tattering courage and did just that.

    The instant she was through, the doors swung closed with a resounding _clang_ that echoed down the deserted corridor on either side of her; a startlingly _metallic_ noise from something that appeared to be made of solid wood. She jumped in surprise, pressed a hand to her racing heart and drew a deep breath to steady her nerves. “Well, _now_ you’ve gone and done it,” she muttered to herself. “Only way to go from here is forward.” She paused, considering, glanced in both directions. “Or maybe to the left…?”

   A snippet of a memory surfaced.

   “ _Which way would you go?” she asked the grouchy little dwarf._

   “ _Me?” Hoggle scoffed. “_ I _wouldn’t go_ either _way.”_

   “If _that’s_ all the help you’re gonna be…” Sarah’s lips curled as she stepped toward the wall, hand outstretched. Rather than cold, damp stone, a strange sort of tingle met her fingertips, like touching a static-filled balloon. And there was a slight resistance as if she’d just pushed her hand through a thick net of spiderwebs. Her smile widened as she stepped forward, although she shivered at the sensation of invisible webs trailing over her bare skin. She'd never much cared for spiders.

   She found herself inside another corridor, which looked a lot like the outer one except it was wider and had far less scraggly underbrush to trip her up. “Thank you, Hoggle,” she murmured, fingering the bracelet she’d looped around her wrist. The silver ring glinted on her pinky, the only finger it still fit. She stood and pondered for a few moments, trying to decide which direction to take. She needed to reach the castle as soon as possible, certain the kids were there. But she knew from experience that getting there would be no easy feat. Her very first impression of the Labyrinth when she’d laid eyes on it all those years ago had been of fingerprints pressed side-by-side, with their whorls and lines overlapping and doubling back in a confusing mess of a maze. She doubted anything had changed.

   “What I need,” she decided, “is a guide.” Someone who knew the Labyrinth’s tricks and traps and just how to avoid them. Preferably someone who wouldn't double-cross or abandon her the moment things got sticky. Where to find someone like that? Jareth had sent Hoggle to her, but she'd discovered Ludo and Didymus on her own. Perhaps she should just start walking and hope to run into a stray resident. It seemed the most logical course of action.

   With a sigh, Sarah turned left and began to walk, keeping an eye out for potential pitfalls and trapdoors. The last thing she needed was to fall into another oubliette and get stuck. There would be nobody to bail her out this time. Every so often she paused, hands to the damp wall, and felt her way along in hopes of finding another concealed doorway. After the sixth such attempt, her determination finally paid off; not _really_ expecting there to be an opening, she fell right through it when solid wall abruptly gave way to that icky spider web feeling.

   She landed on her hands and knees with a startled yelp, looked up to find herself staring into the equally startled face of a smallish goblin; a stranger, and the very first one she'd seen since entering the Labyrinth. “Uh, hello,” she greeted, uncertain. “Who might you be?”

   “Name’s Flem,” the little creature grunted. As if to prove it, he hacked and spat a great wad that spattered against the stone. It missed Sarah's bare foot by mere inches and hissed when it hit the ground. She recoiled in horror and the goblin gave a great cackling laugh, clearly delighted by her blatant disgust.

   Sarah gritted her teeth, reminded herself that, really, what else could one _expect_ from a goblin, and put on her most polite tone of voice. The one she reserved for especially tiresome company—such as her husband's socialite friends—in case she might otherwise accidentally offend someone and thus reflect poorly on Augustine. “Can you help me?” she inquired. “I'm on an urgent mission to reach the castle and I'm afraid I don't know the way. It's imperative that I speak with your king.”

   “Ain't do yas much good,” Flem grunted as he dug around the cracks between the stones with a stick. Searching for … something, apparently. “King's dead.”

   Sarah's entire world screeched to a halt, hazed over a bit before abruptly snapping back into focus. “D-dead?” she croaked. “But that can't be! Hoggle told me he was alive! Just … very ill, is all.”

   Flem shrugged and poked at another stone tile, dug the stick in and used it like a lever to lift the square from its nest. An outraged shriek instantly followed as a skinny goblin, standing no taller than a pencil, popped its head from the opening and began to viciously curse at him, shaking a tiny fist. Flem replied with a nasty grin and dropped the tile back in place, right on the goblin's head. The little voice cut off with a squawk and Flem laughed loudly.

   Sarah's jaw dropped. “That's horrible!” she gasped, outraged on the tiny goblin’s behalf. “Why would you _do_ that?”

   “Cus it's fun.” Flem sniggered as he turned and waddled off. Sarah considered going after him to try asking for directions again. Or to deliver a swift kick in the arse. Possibly both. Of course, after what she'd just witnessed, he seemed like the type who would cheerfully direct her straight off a cliff and kicking him would only make her aching feet hurt worse. Not worth it. She huffed and dropped to her knees. Flem had left his stick behind and she used it to pry up the stone again. She peered into the hole and found the tiny goblin sprawled at the bottom, motionless. “Oh, you're not _dead_ are you? Poor thing,” she tutted.

   At the sound of her voice, the goblin stirred and gave a little groan. She sighed in relief. Not dead, just stunned silly. “Are you alright?” She started to reach into the hole to help the little fellow up, paused as she recalled her first meeting with another creature this small. Funny, it only just occurred to her that she hadn't encountered a single biting fairy thus far. Perhaps after all Hoggle had managed to wipe the little beasts out of existence? More importantly, if she tried to help this goblin would she only get a bitten thumb for her efforts?

   The goblin moaned again and she sighed. “Hold on. Let me help you.” She reached again to carefully scoop him into her hand. “You got quite a knock by that nasty guy.” Indeed, a rather prominent bump had already formed atop his misshapen head, poking through tufts of scraggly, grass-like hair. Sarah might have found it comical were she not so busy being concerned. Motherly instincts and all that. She lifted him from the hole and propped him up in her palm. “Can you sit up?” she asked.

   He lay still in her palm for a second, clearly thinking it over. Then he sat up, patted his legs down. Next, his arms and torso. Then he counted the fingers and bare, dirty toes of his hands and feet. Four on each, as it turned out, which was good because Sarah doubted he could count any higher. Apparently deciding that all of his parts were exactly where they were supposed to be, the goblin hopped to his feet and executed a smart little bow that nearly sent him toppling off his perch. Luckily, Sarah was well-versed in watching for potential disasters (her brother had been _quite_ the adventurous handful as a child), so she'd sensed the upcoming tumble and already had her free hand up to steady him. “So you’re alright then?” she asked again, to which the goblin nodded emphatically. “That’s good. My name is Sarah. What’s yours?”

   “Picklepuss,” he replied in his high, squeaky voice. “But calls me Steve.”

   Sarah’s lips twitched around a smile. “Steve?”

   “Was me mum’s name.”

   “I see.” She bit her lip in an effort to remain serious. “Listen, Steve, I’m in a bit of trouble here. I very much need to get to the castle. Do you happen to know the way?”

   He scratched at his scraggly hair. “What one?” he asked after a moment.

   “What one?” she repeated, confused.

   He nodded. “There’s lotsa ways t’ th’ castle.”

   Sarah bit her lip again. Of course there _would_ be, wouldn’t there? Not that she’d ever found any of them the _first_ time around. “How about a way that’s short and easy and _won’t_ end with me being horribly maimed. Or killed. Or trapped for eternity in an oubliette,” she suggested hopefully.

   Steve thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nopes. Dunno any o’ _thems_ ways,” he admitted.

   Her heart sank. So much for reaching the kids in a reasonable time. “Well, that’s perfect then, isn’t it?” she grumped.

   Steve looked inexplicably pleased with the praise; Sarah didn’t have the heart to inform him about sarcasm. “Well, I guess I’ll have to take my chances,” she sighed, started to lower Steve back to his hole before pausing. “You wouldn’t want to come with me, would you?” she asked. Because the malevolent, watchful feeling of the atmosphere still clung to her like static and tiny Steve was far better than having no company at all.

   He thought again (and, really, Sarah had no idea that _any_ goblin could think so much), then nodded so emphatically that he nearly fell off her hand again. “Gots nuthin’ else ta do,” he agreed.

   “So that works out then,” she replied drolly as she deposited him on her shoulder. He scrambled into her hair and buried himself in the loose tresses, and she just _knew_ she was going to end up with horrible tangled knots. “How about you tell me the best way _you_ know to reach the Goblin City,” she added. “I’m sure I can find the castle from there.”

   “Goes this way.” Steve instantly gestured to the right and Sarah followed the direction of his pointing finger, pleased to have an actual direction to follow as she started off through the vast maze.

   After what felt like hours later, however, she wasn’t feeling so optimistic. Steve, it turned out, liked to sing. And he was determined to serenade his new friend with his “most favoritest” songs, which Sarah did her best to appreciate without much success. Unlike Jareth’s low, dulcet tones, the little goblin had a voice similar to a rusty rake screeching across sheet metal and he was completely tone-deaf, to boot. She found it more and more difficult to think around the railroad spike that was slowly being driven between her eyeballs. It took most of her concentration to _not_ give in to the urge to punt poor Steve over the walls of the Labyrinth like a football.

   And _speaking_ of walls…

   “Steve,” she sighed, interrupting the goblin mid-note, “are you _sure_ we haven’t come this way already?” She gestured to the small pile of stones arranged at the foot of one such wall in a shape that vaguely resembled an arrow. She knew it was an arrow, because she’d arranged it that way, herself. She just wasn’t sure which _one_ , having made several such arrows during their journey in a half-hearted attempt to keep herself from getting turned about.

   For all the good it was doing. But, really, what else had she _expected_? Marking her path hadn’t worked out so well the first time around, after all…

   Steve clambered down from the top of her head, where he’d insisted on perching as it had the “bestest view”. She’d only allowed it because there was nobody else around to laugh themselves silly at the spectacle they probably made. He turned this way and that, muttering to himself. Scrambled to Sarah’s other shoulder to get a view from that side, using her hair as leverage. She grimaced at the incessant tugging and lamented the lack of a brush. Or anything to tie it back out of her face.

   “No, no, no, no,” Steve kept mumbling as he pointed this way and that. “Should be path _theres_ , not wall!”

   “But the paths _change_ ,” Sarah reminded him gently. “Are you accounting for that?”

   Steve muttered again, scratched his head and scowled deeply. “Stupid paths,” he harrumphed. “Paths _downs_ don’t change. Always stays th’ same.” His face abruptly brightened. “Sarah goes _down_ !” he exclaimed, delighted. “Goes to me’s home! I shows you! Sarah takes below-paths! We gets to Goblin City likes _that_.” He made several unsuccessful attempts to snap his stubby fingers, the scowl returning.

   Sarah used one finger to lower his hand. “Steve, how do you expect me to fit into your tunnels?” she chided gently. “My _foot_ is taller than you.”

   “Gets smaller,” he replied, as if it was the most obvious solution in the world.

   She fought back another grin. “That’s a brilliant idea but I’m afraid physics doesn’t work like that,” she deadpanned. “At least, not for humans.”

   He considered. “Bes a goblin?”

   A short laugh escaped. “So, that way is blocked.” She shrugged, nearly unseating her passenger. “Which way should we go now?”

   Steve just huffed. “Beats me. Lab’rinth’s a _cheater_.” He leaned up against her neck and crossed his arms, sulking.

   Sarah could hardly argue with that. She tapped her chin as she thought over her options, eyes landing on the pile of rocks again. An idea occurred and she stooped to pick a thin, oblong stone from the group. It was shaped like a thin oval and relatively flat, but one side curved gently. She found a smaller stone with a sharp edge and, after a bit of effort, managed to scratch a notch into one end of the oblong stone as Steve looked on with keen interest.

   “If neither of us knows which direction to take,” she told him, “then we’ll just let it up to luck to decide.”

   He immediately brightened again. “Steve lucky!” he beamed. “Me’s luckiest goblin in whole kingdom!”

   She scoffed. “Says who?”

   “Everyones!” He puffed out his scrawny chest and postured.

   “Well, I hope _Everyones_ is right,” she muttered as she placed the curved side of the stone against the ground and gave it a spin. When it stopped, the notch she’d carved pointed to left. “Okay. That’s where we go.” She pocketed the stone and marched ahead until they reached yet another crossroads. Another quick spin of her makeshift compass sent them to the right. They continued on this way for awhile, with Steve insisting on giving the stone a twirl every now and then, before they turned the corner of a long corridor and abruptly found themselves at the border of a dark forest.

   Startled, Sarah stopped dead in her tracks, immediately recognizing it. “Oh, no,” she groaned , only to be nearly deafened by Steve’s sudden shriek of terror.

   “No no no _no_! Not _heres_!” he wailed as he scrambled about Sarah’s shoulders in a panic, ripped out several strands of her hair in the process. “Whys you brings us _heres_? Fiery Forest bads bads _bads_!”

   “ _Ow!_ Stop pulling!” Sarah hastily tugged the goblin free from her hair before she lost any more of it. “I didn’t _try_ to bring us here! Aren’t _you_ the one who insisted you were lucky?”

   “Mes _is_ lucky! _Yous_ is _bad_ -lucky!” he squealed, squirming in her grip. “Mes nots goin’ in theres! Put _downs_!” And he bared sharp teeth at her and _growled_.

   Startled by his abrupt and unsettling change in demeanor, Sarah immediately lowered him to the ground and he scrambled free and darted to the nearest tree. Or what looked like the rotting, skeletal remains of a tree, anyway. “Yous gets out of forest,” he commanded. “Bad _bad_ things in forest!” And with that dire warning, he scrambled beneath the rotted roots and vanished from sight, leaving Sarah to face the woodland alone.

 


	6. Five

   Getting herself out of the forest was far easier said than done. Before she even turned around, Sarah knew the maze would be gone and, sure enough, solid wall now stood where the stone path should have been. The only way to go from here was forward, she supposed. So with grim determination, she started off on a pitiful, weed-choked excuse of a path, keeping a sharp eye out for the “bad _bad_ things” that supposedly lived there.

   If there was one thing that Steve had provided, she mused to herself as she picked her way along the trail, it was distraction. Distraction from the neverending, watchful silence of the Labyrinth and, even more importantly, distraction against thinking about how much she _hurt_.

   Sarah had always considered herself to be in reasonably good shape. She tried to set a good example for her daughter by eating nutritional foods, kept herself fit by taking long walks and bike rides with the kids. But traversing the Labyrinth, in comparison, felt more like being dumped headlong into a crash course of military boot camp.

   Her entire body ached with the burn of overworked muscles and stung from the multiple lacerations she’d already received, coupled with the new ones she gained from forcing herself through tangles of thorny underbrush and stumbling over hidden rocks and tree roots. Her poor feet were receiving the worst damage, but when she eventually sat down to wipe the dirt and dried blood from her wounds with the hem of her shirt, she was relieved to find that most of the cuts were shallow and not particularly worrisome. Nothing that would require stitching, at any rate. Still, she knew proper attention would be needed if she hoped to stave off potential infection. Or at least a good cleaning.

   “Where’s a Rite Aid when you need one?” she muttered dryly as she leaned back against the mold-spotted, half-rotted trunk of the tree she currently rested under. The canopy over her head drooped like wilted celery, limbs hanging low with blackened, skeletal leaves clinging despondently to their ends. Most of the trees looked like this. In fact, the entire forest seemed on the verge of death. Clearly, whatever was infecting the Labyrinth had hit this part hard and it made Sarah sad to see it in such a state. She remembered that the forest had been beautiful during her last visit. Mysterious and slightly creepy, yes, but still beautiful.

   At least it was cooler here, she mused as she ran her fingers tiredly through her knotted hair. The stagnant air didn’t feel quite so stifling, even if the smell of dead, rotting things was stronger, as if the very ground had been saturated with it. She didn’t _think_ it was because of the Bog. _That_ smell had been … _undefinable_. Definitely _unforgettable_. The rotted meat smell, while stomach-churningly foul, was still far more bearable than the burning stench of the Bog. She couldn’t exactly recall _how_ bad it had smelled, only that it had been _bad_ and she hoped to never encounter it again.

   Speaking of encountering bad things, she had yet to encounter a single one of the bad things Steve had warned her about before he’d scampered off with his tail between his legs. In fact, she hadn’t seen so much as a squirrel since entering the forest. Lack of natural wildlife might have been odd and suspicious in normal situations, but given the state of this place she couldn’t think it all that surprising. Anything living in it had probably fled for safer haven long ago. It made her think that maybe Steve’s warnings had been a bit of an overreaction. The worst “bad thing” in this forest, she decided wryly, had to be the smell.

   She should have known better. Really. Hadn’t past experience already taught her that displaying _any_ sort of confidence in the Labyrinth was grounds for immediate and potentially brutal retaliation?

   The oubliette … the Cleaners … the Bog of Eternal Stench…

   Or, in this case, the numerous pairs of wild red eyes, all fixed pointedly on her from the canopy of rotting branches.

   Sarah froze in shock to discover that she’d at some point been surrounded by the group of … _whatever_ they were. They’d moved so silently, she never even heard them coming, but now they crept down out of the trees with snarling grins and hungry eyes, weird and grossly misshapen … yet disturbingly _familiar_.

   It took her a full minute to figure out exactly what she was looking at. Or what was looking at _her_ . When she did, her heart dropped like a stone into her feet. It was the Fire Gang. Maybe. She _thought_ so, anyway. It was hard to tell, honestly. She recognized the long, narrow snouts and bulging red eyes, the brilliantly red fur and thin, tufted tails. But as for the _rest_ of them… They had been changed. _Deformed_.

   Their wiry bodies glistened the same way the trees did, spotted with rot and mold. Their long, ropey limbs looked crooked, bent out of shape, as if they’d been put on backwards and left that way.

   And they had too _many_ of them, Sarah realized with horror. One Fiery ventured closer and she realized it had a third leg. A _deer’s_ leg, jammed in beside it’s natural leg, the limb skeletal, the matted brown pelt filthy with grime and peeling off in strips.

   Another Fiery had a mismatched pair of extra arms. One long and thin, mottled green, hung limply from its left side. A short, brown limb jutted from its right. Both arms glistened with clear signs of rot and decay.

   Goblin arms, Sarah realized with horror and her stomach churned violently, threatened to rebel.

   Movement in the tree directly above her caught her attention and she looked up and immediately wished she hadn’t. The Fiery leered down at her, half of its face melded into the decapitated goblin head perched upon its misshapen neck. It, too, looked dead, slack-jawed with lolling black tongue and one milk-white eye hanging half from its socket, the other missing entirely. Most of the skin had rotted away to reveal bare, brown bone.

   It was clear that while the limbs had somehow attached, they had _not_ assimilated. They had not become a natural part of the Fierys and _that_ was the source of the horrible smell. It was the smell of Fire Gang, of the rotted flesh they adorned.

   Sarah lost control of herself, then, fell to her hands and knees and retched until nothing remained in her stomach and even after. Around her, shrieks and howls and screams erupted, filled the forest, echoed from the trees and the ground and the _air_. Feral, uncontrolled, _terrifying_. The Fireys were laughing at her and the maniacal shrieks were enough to stand all of her hair on end, sent her scrambling to her feet in preparation to _flee for her life_ —

   A hand suddenly clamped across her mouth as a thin, hard arm snaked around her torso, pinned her arms to her sides and hauled her back against another body. She squealed in shock, voice muffled as she tensed to fight off her sudden assailant, until a voice hissed sharply into her ear, “ _Do. Not. Run._ ” She went absolutely still as it continued, “If you run, they will chase. And you will end up exactly like those other poor fools who dared flee their madness.”

   Sarah turned her head, just far enough to catch the graceful profile of a face framed by pale hair from the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped several beats and for a moment she thought she was looking at _Jareth_ … but the illusion broke as she realized that this face looked decidedly more feminine; rounded cheeks, fuller lips and a smooth, slender jawline. And the hair wasn’t blonde, it was pure, snowy white.

   That _voice_ , though…

   “I’m going to remove my hand now,” the stranger murmured in a soft, husky lilt only a few octaves higher than Jareth’s silky tones. “Do _not_ scream. That will also trigger their attack.” Sarah nodded and was immediately freed. A hand threaded through hers, clinging tight. “We are going to leave now. I’ll guide you. Walk slowly. Do not look at them. Do not heed their laughter. _Do not_ give in to the urge to run. Or you will die.”

   Sarah meekly allowed herself to be led away from the Fire Gang. Their laughter died, turned to growls and snarls as she passed through the circle. One of them lunged, snapped at her hand and she jerked away with a scream quickly caught behind clenched teeth. The laughter started again, snickers and cackles that set her teeth on edge and made her legs tense and shake with the overwhelming desire to _escape_. It only grew stronger when she risked a peek back and realized the entire group of them had vanished into the trees and now followed from above, eyes glowing between blackened boughs.

   The hand holding hers tightened in warning, grip strengthening until she felt her bones creak. She hissed in protest but the pain grounded her, forced the maddening cackles out of her brain. She drew in deep breaths to steady her nerves. Distraction. She needed a distraction. “Wh-what happened to them?” she whispered, unable to scrub the images of their grotesque forms from her mind.

   “The sickness took them,” her rescuer replied. “They were the first to succumb to the pollution of the magic, being as tied to the forest as they are. But they are not the _only_ , so we must be wary on our journey.”

   _Our?_

   Did that mean the stranger planned on coming with her? Sarah cast surreptitious glances at … him? Her? She couldn’t tell by the beautifully androgynous face, and layered gray robes revealed nothing of gender. Even the husky voice could have belonged to either. But it hardly seemed polite to just come out and _ask_ , so she finally settled on, “Who _are_ you, exactly?”

   “I am … an ally,” came the vague response. “You may call me Fable.”

   Sarah nodded, decided the name sounded as masculine as anything. Sort of. “My name’s—”

   “Sarah. Yes, I know.” At her surprised glance, Fable’s lips quirked. “Sarah Williams. The one who got away.”

   “How—?” She blinked. “How did you know that?”

   “I know everything,” he sniffed.

   She was about to ask how it was possible for him to know _everything_ when she was rudely interrupted by the brown goblin arm that came flying out of nowhere and hit the tree just in front of her with a dull, wet smack. Putrid ichor splattered the side of her face and she recoiled with horror and disgust; only Fable’s tight grasp on her hand kept her from bolting as shrieks and howls filled the air with renewed vigor.

   “I don’t understand. Why don’t they just _attack_ us?” she muttered through gritted teeth as she tightened her own grip on her lifeline.

   “They cannot,” Fable murmured, used the sleeve of his robe to gently wipe the gore from her cheek. “In this twisted game, their prey must flee before they attack. If you do not run, _they_ cannot chase.”

   That still didn’t make much sense, but Sarah decided this was a case of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, so she gritted her teeth and did her best to block out the hair-raising cackles as her guide led her through the forest. The Fierys were persistent, she could give them that much. They continued to prowl the trees above them, howling and goading with the occasional tossed arm or leg, all aimed with uncanny accuracy. The deer leg nearly clipped Fable on the head, who _snarled_ in response—a truly _savage_ sound, in Sarah’s opinion—but otherwise made no retaliation.

   Not a single one of the Fierys spoke. It was as if they’d lost all sense of reason, been reduced to mere animals. Rabid, completely _psychotic_ animals. Sarah hadn’t liked the Fire Gang much during their first meeting but it still made her heartsick to see them reduced to _this_. So it was with great relief when they finally pushed through a tall thicket of thorny brambles and found themselves standing before another great stone wall.

   The howls grew to a crazed frenzy as the Fierys seemed to realize that their prey was about to escape. They screamed and cavorted and leaped through the trees like howler monkeys, and it felt as if each wail might physically pierce Sarah’s skull and straight into her brain. She was forced to close her eyes against the ensuing dizziness and even Fable looked paler and more drawn as he felt along the wall. He paused and gave a mighty shove against a particular stone, and a large section simply collapsed.

   He grabbed Sarah by the arm and shoved her through the jagged opening, quickly followed, and the instant they landed on hard, stone floor, the screaming laughter abruptly cut off. Startled, Sarah glanced behind her to find the opening gone, replaced by a bracket in which a torch burned brightly. The forest had vanished completely and she now found herself in a large, empty stone chamber. “Wh-where are we _now_?” she asked through chattering teeth, her entire body trembling in the aftermath of adrenaline and shock and genuine, gut-wrenching fear.

   “The castle,” came the simple reply. “You were trying to come here, were you not?”

   “Well, yes. But how did you—?” She cut herself off with a shake of her head. “Never mind. You know everything, I almost forgot.”

   Fable smirked, and it was such a _familiar_ expression that she did a double-take. “I—Have we met before?” she stuttered, confused. “Why does it feel like I _know_ you?”

   He shrugged. “Perhaps I just have one of those faces?” He chuckled at her dirty look, pointed to a set of stairs at the far end of the chamber. “Those will take you to the ones you seek,” he advised.

   She heaved a sigh and struggled to her feet as exhaustion began to catch up with her. Now that the adrenaline was draining away, her body throbbed with renewed vigor. “ _Thank_ you,” she breathed. “I don’t know how to repay you for all of your help.”

   “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure we can come up with something.” And the slow smile he graced her with was such a _disturbing_ combination of mischievous and feral that she thought it best not to comment further, instead turned to stumble over to the stairs. “Are you coming?” She glanced over her shoulder to find him simply standing there, watching after her.

   “I’ll be along,” he promised vaguely, made a little shooing motion with one hand.

   Having no reason to press him into going with her, she merely shrugged and continued on her way.


	7. Six

   Sarah couldn’t say she wasn’t relieved that Fable had chosen to stay behind, although it did give her cause to wonder whether he might be Up to Something. Perhaps it seemed a bit ungrateful of her but, for all that he’d saved her life, she couldn’t bring herself to fully _trust_ him. The fact that she also felt as if she ought to know him somehow didn’t make him any less unsettling; she was quite sure she’d never met him before, or _any_ fae aside from Jareth.

   She paused on the steps to catch her breath for a moment and then frowned as it belatedly occurred to her that this was the _fourth_ such rest she’d taken since beginning her ascent up the staircase. She glanced suspiciously behind her, half-expecting to see the entrance to the stone chamber. There was nothing. Just an endless array of steps, spiraling gently down the narrow passage she’d been following.

   When she looked up, more of the same.

   A feeling of unease crept over her. Stairs were supposed to _lead_ somewhere. Even stairs in the Labyrinth. The last flight she’d climbed had led her into the dizzying display of the four-dimensional puzzle room, but so far she’d had no luck getting anywhere with this one. She sat down on the step to contemplate, brows furrowed. It couldn’t be some sort of a trap, could it? Luring her into a never-ending staircase that had neither beginning nor end, forcing her to climb until she dropped from exhaustion or thirst? But if he’d wanted to kill her, why not just leave her to the Fire Gang? They'd have done the job nicely, she was sure.

   She hopped to her feet and determinedly started to climb again. Sitting around on her duff waiting for someone to stumble over her wouldn’t get her anywhere and she was _certain_ that there had to be a puzzle to this. Some way to get to where she was trying to go…

   Think _, Sarah. Where_ are _you trying to go?_ The thought rang clear as a whisper in her mind. It sounded suspiciously like Fable.

   Or maybe that was Jareth’s voice? They sounded so similar, she really couldn’t tell.

   “To the ones I seek,” she nonetheless whispered back.

   _And who are they?_

   Thoughts of her daughter and brother, of Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo flitted briefly through her mind. But she’d been distracted now with wondering if Jareth knew she was here, or whether that goblin had been telling the truth about him _dying_ , and no sooner had the thoughts formed than the stairway was suddenly _gone_ and she found herself stumbling, rather ungracefully, into yet another stone chamber.

   Unlike the first, this room was far from empty. It had been decorated in lavish style with sheets of cream and golden silk that draped the stone walls like gauzy curtains. The furniture gleamed with the dark burnish of well-polished wood and accents of gold and silver. At one wall, a trio of tall, arched windows allowed sickly yellow light to filter through, dimly illuminating the room’s expanse. Against the opposite, a great hearth held the dying embers of a fire, circled with comfortable armchairs and a lounge. A magnificent bed of glowing redwood held its grandiose place in the center of the room, demanding the immediate attention of all who entered.

   Sarah couldn’t help staring. It was truly a bed fit for a king. And repose in the middle of it, nearly lost among swaths of velvet and silk, was exactly where she found one. Jareth reclined against a mountain of pillows colored in elegant shades of soft cream, deepest burgundy and palest gold. A book lay open in his palm, forgotten, as his gaze raked over her face. He looked as surprised to see _her_ as she was to see _him_.

   “E-excuse me!” she squeaked, hastily turned around to dart into the stairwell and try again. Well, that answered _that_ . Jareth was most certainly alive and if he had been unaware of her presence in his kingdom _before_ , he certainly knew of it _now_.

   Aaaand the stairwell was gone, as she discovered the moment she smacked into the wall, nearly hard enough to brain herself had her upraised hands not been in the way.

   Naturally.

   She gave a little groan and curled one hand into a fist, thumped her forehead against it as a mantra of _whymewhymewhyme_ scrolled through her head.

   “ _Well_. If it isn’t you.”

   She winced at his bland tone. “Well, if _this_ isn’t sufficiently awkward…” she mumbled sardonically to the wall.

   A faint chuckle greeted her. “I _thought_ I sensed a disturbance in the Force…”

   She opened her mouth to reply—perhaps to grovel for her life a bit—until his words abruptly registered. She cast an incredulous glance over her shoulder. “Di-did you just make a _pop culture_ reference?”

   “Do you plan to continue speaking to the wall?” he rejoined snidely. With a blush, she sucked in a deep breath and turned around, made three great strides toward the bed. Where she stopped as she saw that the thick quilted blankets covering him had now been pushed aside. And she realized with some consternation that he wore nothing but a knee-length night shirt fashioned of some pale fabric that was so thin and filmy, it hardly had the right to be called fabric at all.

   Sarah was _hardly_ a blushing virgin anymore, but that didn't mean she was any more comfortable _now_ than she would've been at fifteen with ogling a man's … goodies. Especially _this_ man’s goodies. Face burning, she snapped her eyes upward, only to lock gazes with the Goblin King; hers mortified, his glinting with thinly-veiled amusement. Even from that distance she could see the changes his illness had wrought. The dullness of his skin, missing the glowing luminance she remembered. The gaunt, sallow appearance of elegant features with deep bruises smudged beneath hollowed eyes. His fine hair spread lank and dull over thin shoulders. He looked … _smaller_ somehow. Diminished. So unlike the beautifully terrifying king from her memories that she wondered if it really was the same man or if this was just some horrible ruse being played upon her.

   They sized each other up for a few more moments as the silence grew between them. Hers increasingly uncomfortable, his both amused and strangely patient as he waited for her to _say_ something. She shifted from foot to foot and wondered what _should_ be said to the person whose kingdom she’d destroyed and who appeared to be _dying_ as a direct result of it. “I’m sorry” _hardly_ seemed adequate.

   “You’re … looking well,” she ventured after a bit. It wasn’t a _blatant_ lie, given how she’d recently been told he was _dead_ …

   Jareth proceeded to look unimpressed. “Come, now,” he tsked. “Do try not to insult my intelligence.”

   She pursed her lips, abruptly irritated. Hey, at least she _tried_ to be civil! “Okay, then. You look like death warmed over,” she snarked, crossing her arms. She instantly regretted the words, realized how seriously she’d just overstepped the bounds. He was still a _king_ , after all. Far too late to take them back, she mentally braced herself, waited for Jareth to throw her out of the room—through a window, in all likelihood—and was again caught off-guard when he instead tipped his head back and laughed.

   His humor didn’t last long as chuckles abruptly dissolved into deep, hacking coughs that made her scramble to his bedside in alarm. Doubled over, he waved her off before she could touch him. Embarrassed at herself (those darned motherly instincts; _so_ inconvenient sometimes…), she meekly stepped back as he slowly straightened, forehead glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration. He looked so _vulnerable_ that her heart went out to him. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, contrite. “That was horribly rude.”

   “Indeed.” He slid her a glance from the corner of his eye. “But if I may point out, my dear, I am not the only one who appears a bit … disheveled.” His assessing gaze raked over her body, reminded her of her own rather unsightly appearance; her raw, filthy bare feet, the bloody scratches covering her arms and legs, her grimy pajamas and tangled hair. Remnants of the smelly, drying gore that still clung to her neck and shirt. She blushed and shifted under his scrutiny.

   “It’s … been a long day,” she muttered as she busied herself with pouring him a cup of water from the crystal pitcher at his bedside. She silently offered him the silver goblet and he accepted with a slight nod of gratitude and took a long drought.

   “As you can see,” he rasped as he leaned into the pillows again, “I have not been … well, as of late.”

   “I know.” Sarah ducked her head again. “Hoggle told me what’s been happening. About the Labyrinth … dying.”

   “Did he, now?” Jareth’s smile flashed, tight and grim. “And I suppose you were all too willing to rush right over and witness your greatest adversary laid low at your feet. A truly glorious day for the forces of good, no doubt.”

   Sarah flinched. “Of course not. Don't be like that,” she mumbled. “I never wanted you to die. _Nobody_ wants that.”

   “Indeed.” His steely gaze never left hers. “I suppose you've come as an avenging angel, then, to right the wrong that has been done to this land.”

   His tone was so condescending that she drew herself up and raised her chin proudly. “Actually,” she replied sharply, “I’ve merely come to collect the children. Then, since my company seems so unwelcome, we’ll be returning home.”

   Jareth went absolutely still. “Children,” he repeated softly. “You are certainly mistaken. There have been no wishes made.”

   “I know,” she agreed. “They've been stolen away. My brother, Toby—I’m sure you remember Toby—and my daughter, Katerina.”

   “And so you simply assume that the Goblin King is respon—”

   “Oh, stop it.” She cut him off mid-sentence, secretly delighted by the brief surprise that flickered across his face. “I never claimed that _you_ took them,” she continued pertly. “Looking at you, I can tell you’re _hardly_ in any sort of shape to go around kidnapping children.”

   His face darkened at that. “Well, if you’re not accusing _me_ , then why would you presume that they’re _here_ , of all places? The Labyrinth is not some Aboveground corner store one simply pops into for a gallon of milk or a lottery ticket whenever one feels like it.”

   Sarah cocked her head. And again with the modern references. It made her wonder how often he watched the above world to even know what the lottery _was_. Not to mention a convenience store.

   Which, in turn, made her wonder how often he might have watched _her_. She hastily banished the thought.

   “Well,” she began slowly, “the magical portal conveniently left open in the bedroom window was a pretty big clue…”

   It was almost comical the way Jareth’s eyes widened. “Impossible,” he snapped. “I certainly would have felt the pull of that much power.”

   “Whether or not you felt it, it appeared and _someone_ took the kids through it. They deliberately left it open for me to find. They _wanted_ me to follow them.”

   “And who are ‘they’?”

   Sarah took a deep breath and worried the ring on her finger. “I don’t know for certain but I-I’m pretty sure Hoggle is the one responsible.”

   She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it certainly wasn’t for Jareth to laugh. Again. She tensed, waited for the deep chuckles to dissolve into that horrible coughing, but he managed to keep control of himself this time. “So Hoghead has taken it upon himself to play the role of villain,” he uttered, clearly disbelieving. “My, this _is_ a plot twist.”

   Sarah felt herself flushing. “It’s the truth,” she huffed. She pulled the bracelet from her wrist and dangled it in front of him. “I gave this to Hoggle during my first trip through the Labyrinth, but last night I found it on the windowsill. And this ring…” She yanked said ring off her finger. “I gave it to the Wiseman as payment and yet it also ended up in Toby’s bedroom. How did they get there? Who else knew they were mine?”

   Jareth remained silent, eyes intense in his scrutiny of her face. He still seemed doubtful and she huffed irritably. “Why would I make up such a crazy story? And how else do you think I could I have _gotten_ here?” she pressed. “You said it yourself; it’s not like strolling into a corner store.”

   “Very well,” he relented. “It seems the fastest way to solve this little mystery is to go right to the source. _Hoggle!_ ”

   His sudden bellow made Sarah’s ears ring. She winced and stepped back as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, completely heedless of modesty as his nightshirt ruched up around his thighs. She hastily averted her gaze before she saw something she _really_ shouldn’t as he stood and strode to the door.

   Well, perhaps “strode” was too strong a word. Jareth’s gait resembled more of a weak limp and it was all she could do to keep her feet planted and not rush to his side to steady him before he tipped right over. His pride wouldn’t stand for it, she was sure. Besides, he wasn’t wearing _nearly_ enough clothes for her comfort and she certainly didn’t want him to get the wrong idea!

   A slight ruckus from the hallway and then the ridiculously large door that guarded Jareth’s chambers swung open with a protesting groan. A familiar little figure scurried in. “You bellowed, Yer Majesty?” the dwarf grumped as he balanced a tray of food in his arms and managed to push the door shut with one foot. “I tolds ya I’d be ins wit’ yer supper soon as it were rea—”

   His words cut off as pale blue eyes landed on Sarah. A great, resounding crash filled the silence when the tray slipped from his limp grasp, spilling its contents across the floor. “Y-y-you!” He barely glanced at the mess as he hurried forward, jaw working. “What’re _you_ doin’ here? How’d you _get_ here? You saids you wasn't comin’!”

  Sarah stared at him, both eyebrows raised to her hairline at his astonishment. “What am I _doing_ here?” she repeated, unable to keep the angry quaver from her voice. “Why do you think? How do you think I _got_ here? Through the portal _you_ left open!”

  He blinked as his brow furrowed in apparent confusion. “Portal?”

   “The one in Toby’s window? The very same one Jareth used ten years ago? Ring a bell?” She clenched her fists as she struggled to contain her growing ire. “Where are the kids, Hoggle?” she pressed. “I came just like you wanted so _where are they_?”

   His eyes widened. “Kids? What kids?” he squawked. “I ain’t gots any idea what yer talkin’ abouts!”

   She stared at him. Unable to understand his reluctance to confess; she’d done exactly what he wanted so why was he trying to act innocent _now_? She dangled the bracelet in front of his nose. “Doesn’t _this_ look familiar?”

   Hoggle’s jaw dropped as he fumbled around the assortment of jewelry that dangled from his belt. “Wh-where’d ya gets that? That’s mine!”

   She snatched it out of reach as he grasped for it. “Right where you left it,” she snapped. “You want it back? Give me my children!”

   All Hoggle could do was sputter. “I don’t—That isn’t—How could yas think I’d steals yer kids? We’s friends! I’d never do somethin’ likes that to yas!” Genuine hurt gleamed in his eyes, along with a hint of anger.

   Sarah felt the first stirrings of doubt, quickly firmed her resolve before she could lose it. She didn't _want_ to fight with Hoggle. She wanted badly to believe him, to believe it was all a terrible misunderstanding, but…  

   “What else am I supposed to think?” She tossed both the bracelet and the ring to the floor. “You show up out of nowhere in Katie’s mirror, asking for help. And when I have to refuse, a few hours later _both_ of the kids are missing. There’s a wide-open passage into the Labyrinth and I find _your_ bracelet in _Toby’s_ bedroom. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

   Hoggle sputtered again, hurt melting into confusion. “But that was months ago!” he protested. “I ain’t talked to yas since then!”

   Sarah opened her mouth to argue and hesitated, brow furrowed. It was her turn to be confused. “You came to me last night,” she reminded him. “There was a big storm. Katie woke me in the middle of the night telling me about the funny man in the mirror.”

   “It weren’t me.” He crossed his arms, stubborn scowl fixed.

   “It had to be!” She tossed her hands up in frustration. “How many dwarves do you think I’ve got, using my mirror as some … some interdimensional telephone?”

   He didn't reply and she pinched the bridge of her nose as the dull headache that had been lurking in the back of her skull for the past few hours steadily increased pressure, stretched her taut nerves to the snapping point. “Did you or did you _not_ come to me asking for help?” she asked with exaggerated patience.

   He immediately nodded. “I did.” And when she tried to respond, hastily added, “but it weren’t a night ago an’ I ain’t been back to yas since. Couldn’t. Magic’s been so busted up it weren’t safe ta try no more.”

   She made a frustrated little whine in the back of her throat, turned a helpless gaze to Jareth, who had been listening to the exchange in stoic silence. “Come, come now, Sarah,” he chided softly. “Surely you haven’t forgotten the rules of the Underground. You’ve spent years studying the tales. Some truth lies among the myth.”

   She _really_ wasn’t in the mood for riddles, but Sarah sighed deeply and struggled to recall everything she’d ever read in regards to the faerie realms. There were so many conflicting stories and much of it was, indeed, made up fantasy. But several of the … “rules” (for lack of a more accurate term) seemed to be universal among many of the tales. “Don’t ever step into a fairy ring,” she recalled. “Never eat or drink anything in the Underground. Words have power; use them wisely.” She ignored the Goblin King’s derisive snort but felt her cheeks grow hot at the reminder of a lesson learned, too little, too late. “Don’t thank a fae for favors rendered, else risk putting yourself into their power,” she pressed on. “Time passes differently in the Under—”

   Here she stopped short, eyes widening in belated realization. How could she have forgotten that one, fundamental rule?

   “May’ve been a few hours ta _yous_ , but it been longer ‘n that down heres,” Hoggle confirmed.

   “But … but isn’t it the _opposite_? The stories all say that only hours pass here to _years_ Aboveground.”

   “Fact from myth,” Jareth reminded her. At some point he’d seated himself in one of the chairs by the hearth, looking more worn by the second. Sarah bit her lip to keep herself from ordering him back to bed.

   “Fact is, Jareth was wot kept time in workin’ order ‘round here but he ain’t been in much condition ta keeps much of anything in any order no more,” Hoggle grumped. He quelled slightly under the withering glare Jareth tossed his way but managed to stand his ground.

   Sarah pondered this information. “So, you’re saying time is … _broken_?” she asked in dismay.

   “Not broken.” Jareth waved a dismissive hand. “Merely … _confused_.” His sharp, arrogant smile seemed a mere shadow of its former self. He tilted his head, eyes shrewd as he added with mocking sympathy, “Do sit down, dearest, before you fall over. You look a little faint.”

   Sarah bit her lip against the urge to backtalk, decided to take him up on his offer and staggered toward the nearest chair to drop into it; the exhaustion she’d stubbornly held at bay nearly blindsided her as it surged forward in one great rush and she closed her eyes against the ensuing dizziness. A heavy silver goblet was pressed into her hand and she offered a weak yet grateful smile to Hoggle as she raised it to her lips. Where she promptly hesitated, torn between her raging thirst and her desire to _not_ become a permanent resident of the Goblin Kingdom.

   Clearly sensing her thoughts, Jareth snorted with thinly-veiled amusement. “Oh, do go on. You will not be trapped here for eternity if you drink the water. Nor will it put you under any enchantment.” At her continued hesitance, he actually rolled his eyes. “On my honor as the King of the Goblins, it is safe,” he intoned. Putting as much dry sarcasm as he could muster into the words.

   Sarah felt her lips twitch into a smile despite herself, hid it behind the cup as she allowed cool water to flow down her throat … and abruptly hacked and choked when the taste of mold and withered plants filled her mouth.

   “Ah. Yes.” Jareth smiled grimly. “My apologies for not warning you. I’m afraid we’ve all grown so accustomed to the stagnancy of the water by now that we’ve quite gotten used to the taste.”

   “You actually _drink_ this?” Sarah set the goblet aside, nose wrinkled with distaste. “No wonder you’re so sick! I doubt it’s doing much to help you.”

   “Yes, well … beggars can’t be choosers and all that.” Another dismissive wave.

   Sarah released a slow breath, turned a beseeching haze to Hoggle. “Where are the kids, Hoggle? If you take me to them I promise I won’t be angry.”

   Hoggle scowled deeply. “I tolds ya I ain’t gots ‘em! I dunno who took ‘em but it weren’t me!”

   She dragged her hand through her matted hair. “If _you_ don’t have them, then someone else does,” she muttered. Her stomach roiled as she pondered the implications. “I wasn’t that worried before because I knew they’d at least be safe with you. But now…” She shook her head, eyes burning as if to shed tears, only she was too parched to cry. “What should I _do_? They could be anywhere and I can’t even _fathom_ where to begin looking.” Frankly, the thought of venturing back out into that hellish landscape with its equally hellish occupants was a _terrifying_ idea.

   But the thought that the children might be out there among them was even more terrifying and _not_ an idea to dwell on lest she send herself into a full-blown panic attack.

  “If it pleases the lady, perhaps I might be of assistance.”

   Fable’s pale figure melted out of the shadows, causing startlement all around. He ignored Hoggle’s yelp, beelined past Jareth’s equally astonished form with barely a glance and paused to kneel before Sarah’s chair. “How very strange.” His expression filled with childlike curiosity. “This isn’t at all where I’d expected you to end up. How did you come to be _here_?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story in 2016 to pay homage to the passing of the late, great David Bowie, who has been SUCH an inspiration to my writing. If it wasn't for Labyrinth, I probably never would have met the world of fanfiction or gained enough confidence to keep writing and sharing the crazy mess of ideas in my head with complete strangers. I've definitely come a long way in the past twenty years.
> 
> Just a warning, the updates to Feral are slow and sporadic, but they WILL be coming. I'm juggling several very long stories and trying to give each of them equal turns among all the real-life stuff. It doesn't always work out. But I'm trying.


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